Bootstrap forms for Django

Bootstrap integration for django using widget templates.

Motivation

This library is meant to be a drop-in replacement for django-bootstrap5. See below for a list of differences. I really like that library, but it is hard to customize some things because everything is done in python functions. By using widget templates, I hope this library is more flexible.

Installation

Install with pip:

pip install 'django-bs==4.*'  # for bootstrap 4
pip install 'django-bs==5.*'  # for bootstrap 5

After that you have to add it to INSTALLED_APPS. You also need to make sure that the correct FORM_RENDERER is selected and django.forms is in INSTALLED_APPS (after django_bs). This is required so that widget templates can be overwritten:

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    …
    'django_bs',
    …
    'django.forms',
    …
]

FORM_RENDERER = 'django.forms.renderers.TemplatesSetting'

Usage

The following template tags are included in the bootstrap library:

• bootstrap_field {boundfield} - Render a single field.
• bootstrap_form {form} - Render errors and all fields for a form. The <form> element itself is not included.
• bootstrap_messages - Render messages from django.contrib.messages.
• bootstrap_pagination {page} - Render pagination. You should wrap it in a <nav> element with a meaningful aria-label yourself.

Please refer to the source code for additional parameters.

Differences to django-bootstrap5

• Uses widget templates instead of custom renderers. IMHO this makes the code much easier to read and customize. A big downside is that I had to monkey-patch BoundField.as_widget() to include some information that would otherwise not be available in the widget templates.
• Also overwrites the default form template in Django 4.0 and later so that {{ form }} does the right thing automatically.
• Concentrates on form fields and does therefore not include some other features.
• Uses .form-text.text-danger instead of .invalid-feedback as it does not depend on DOM location. (see also twbs/bootstrap#29439)
• Uses Django's required_css_class which is defined on the Form class and added to the <label>.
• Does not use .is-valid because I find it confusing with server-side rendering.
• Does not include dismiss-buttons for alerts to avoid depending on JavaScript.
• Non-field errors are styled as alerts.
• Improved accessibility.
• You will have to load bootstrap yourself.
• No configuration.