django-menu-gauteron 0.0.1

A simple menu middleware for Django

django-menu

This package is a simple Django middleware for generating a dictionary with the information required to be displayed in a template.

Usage

The module is integrated in a Django project by adding it in the MIDDLEWARE list within the project settings file.

MIDDLEWARE = [
   ...
   'django_menu.middleware.menu_middleware',
]

The menu elements are set in a similar way that the Django project views are configured in urlpatterns. A root file (typically named "menu.py") should be created in the Django project directory. Its very minimal content is the following:

menu = [
]

The project settings file must make reference to this file in the ROOT_MENUCONF variable.

ROOT_MENUCONF = 'project.menu' # If the root file is "project/menu.py"

Within the project views and templates, the menu dictionary is referenced as request.menu.

Configuration

Menu items

With the above settings, the menu is empty. The next step is to add content. The module proposes 3 types of content:

• A label - A simple label without any linked URL;
• A menu entry - A single menu entry that relates to an URL or to a view.
• A menu group - A group of menu entries. The template implementation may decide to group all the child items as an expandable tree;

These contents are added by calling functions from the django_menu module.

label(name, **kwargs) is used to add a label to the menu:

• The name argument defines the name to be displayed.

menu(name, viewname=None, url=None, **kwargs is used to add an entry to the menu:

• The name argument defines the name to be displayed.
• The viewname is used to refer to a Django view name as defined in the urlpatterns. The view name is typically intended to be used for referring to project internal views.
• The url argument is used to refer to an full URL, typically for links external to the project. Either viewname or url must be given, but they cannot be set simultaneously for the same menu entry.

menugroup(name, entries, **kwargs) is used to hierarchically group menu items together.

• The name argument defines the name to be displayed.
• The entries is a list of child menu items (labels, menu entries or another menu group).

For all functions, the kwargs collects all other named arguments and add them as is to the menu dictionary. This is a convenient way for the user to add own options that may be used by the template for custom processing (e.g. to add icons, colors, custom CSS class, ...).

Example

from django_menu import label, menu, menugroup

menu = [
    label('Shop'),
    menugroup('Food', 
    [
        menugroup('Meat',
            [
              menu('Hamburger', viewname='hamburger', icon='fas fa-hamburger'),
            ], 
            icon='fas fa-drumstick-bite'),
        menu('Pizza', viewname='pizza', icon='fas fa-pizza-slice'),
    ],
    icon = 'fas fa-utensils'),
]

Menu configuration by application

All menu can be configured in a single menu root configuration file. However, this is not very flexible and convenient to manage when the number of Django applications increase.

It has been adopted an approach similar to the urlpatterns one: It is recommended for th root menu configuration file to include per-app menu configuration files.

Example

from django_menu import include

menu = [
    *include('myapp.menu'), # To include the "myapp/menu.py" file
]

Remark that include returns a list. The elements of the list must unpacked using the star * operator.