Templates

There are two ways to define templates for use with nanodjango apps:

put them in a templates/ dir next to your script
define them on the app.templates dict

Whichever approach you take, you can render them using standard techniques, or the app.render shortcut method.

Defining templates

To define a template in the same script as the rest of your code, assign the templates to the app.templates dict, using the filename and relative path as the key, and the template content as the value.

It is recommended that templates are defined at the bottom of your script, out of the way of your code.

You can either assign by key:

app.templates["base.html"] = """<!doctype html>
  <html lang="en">
    <body>
      {% block content %}{% endblock %}
    </body>"
  </html>
"""
app.templates["myview/hello.html"] = "{% block content %}Hello{% endblock %}"

or by dict:

app.templates = {
  "base.html": """<!doctype html>
    <html lang="en">
      <body>
        {% block content %}{% endblock %}
      </body>"
    </html>
  """,
  "myview/hello.html": """
      {% extends "base.html" %}
      {% block content %}Hello{% endblock %}
  """,
}

This uses Django’s locmem template loader, so these templates can be extended and included as normal templates, and can work with files in a templates dir.

If a template path is defined as both a file and in the app.templates dict, the template in the dict will be used.

Using templates

Nanodjango provides a helper method to quickly render a template: app.render(__request, template_name, context=None, content_type=None, status=None, using=None__)

Example usage:

@app.route("/")
def index(request):
    return app.render(request, "index.html", {"books": Book.objects.all()})

app.templates = {
    "index.html" : """
        {% extends "base.html" %}
        {% block content %}
          <p>There are {{ books.count }} books:</p>
          {% for book in books %}
            <p>{{ book.title }}</p>
          {% endfor %}
        {% endblock %}
    """,
    ...
}

This is a direct convenience wrapper for django.shortcuts.render <https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/topics/http/shortcuts/#render>. When converting a script which calls app.render, nanodjango will attempt to rewrite it to use the standard Django shortcut.

Converting templates

Running the nanodjango convert command on an app script will put templates in the app’s templates directory.

Files which are in a dir will be copied across.

Templates defined in the app.templates dict will be written out to files.

If the same template path is defined in both, the template from the dict will be written to the file.