Put this in your local_settings file (click the little ‘View Source’ icon in the upper right to easily cut & paste):

import re
def show_toolbar(request):
    uri = request.get_full_path()
    if re.match(r'/admin/', uri):
        return False
    return True

DEBUG_TOOLBAR_CONFIG = {
    'SHOW_TOOLBAR_CALLBACK': show_toolbar
}

Again, no big deal. It’s an old trick now to maintain a separate local_settings.py file. By importing our local_settings at the end of the settings.py module, anything in local_settings will overwrite whatever is in settings.

So all we have to do then is make a new list of debugging apps in local_settings.py, and add them to the INSTALLED_APPS list in settings.py.

My first naive attempt was to do this:

# local_settings.py
INSTALLED_APPS +=  ('django_extensions',)

Can you spot the problem? The original INSTALLED_APPS is not available in local_settings.py, so we can’t add to it there.

Well, if we can’t add our list in local_settings.py, let’s add in in settings.py

# local_settings.py
DEBUG_APPS = ('django_extensions',)

# settings.py
try:
    from local_settings.py import *
    INSTALLED_APPS += DEBUG_APPS
except ImportError:
    pass

This works just fine, as long as there is a DEBUG_APPS list specified in local_settings.py. However, the whole point of having a local_settings.py file is to optionally add or overwrite settings.

To remove this dependency, simply define an empty DEBUG_APPS setting in the main settings.py file.

Our end result looks like:

# local_settings.py
DEBUG_APPS = ('django_extensions',)

# settings.py
DEBUG_APPS = None
try:
    from local_settings.py import *
    INSTALLED_APPS += DEBUG_APPS
except ImportError:
    pass

Another nice trick, if you’re using pip, is to set up a separate requirements file for your debugging apps. For example, a requirements file for django_extensions:

# debug_requirements.txt
django-extensions==0.5
Werkzeug==0.6.2

Then to install my debugging apps, I just run pip install -r debug_requirements.txt