Counting Down the Days

It’s here – December has really started, and it’s time to start watching the calendar. How better than to build a Python web app to count the days until Christmas?

Visit the finished result:

https://how-many-days-until-christmas.com

Get your own copy of the source code here:

Open Source Code

Doing the calculation

The calculation itself is pretty simple, thanks to Python’s datetime library. We can do it all in the browser, in the first page’s __init__ method:

from datetime import date

# ...

christmas_day = date(year=2020, month=12, day=25)
days_til_christmas = (christmas_day - date.today()).days

Displaying it on the page

We use the visual designer to lay out our page, and then write the code:

self.days_lbl.text = "%s days" % days_til_christmas

Choosing a domain name

I used Amazon Route 53 to register how-many-days-until-christmas.com, then I followed the DNS settings guide to point it at my Anvil app:

Note: This guide includes screenshots of the Classic Editor. Since we created this guide, we've released the new Anvil Editor, which is more powerful and easier to use.

All the code in this guide will work, but the Anvil Editor will look a little different to the screenshots you see here!

That’s it!

I’ve built and published a web app that counts down until Christmas, with nothing but Python! Plenty of time left over for mulled wine, too…

View the source code:

Open in Anvil

How Many Days Until Christmas? (dot com)

Anvil Advent Calendar

Day 3 of the Anvil Advent Calendar