django-templated-email 1.0

A Django oriented templated / transaction email abstraction

Info:

A Django oriented templated email sending class

Author:

Bradley Whittington (http://github.com/bradwhittington, http://twitter.com/darb)

Tests:

Overview

django-templated-email is oriented towards sending templated emails. The library supports template inheritance, adding cc’d and bcc’d recipients, configurable template naming and location.

The send_templated_email method can be thought of as the render_to_response shortcut for email.

Getting going - installation

Installing:

pip install django-templated-email

You can add the following to your settings.py (but it works out the box):

TEMPLATED_EMAIL_BACKEND = 'templated_email.backends.vanilla_django.TemplateBackend'

# You can use a shortcut version
TEMPLATED_EMAIL_BACKEND = 'templated_email.backends.vanilla_django'

# You can also use a class directly
from templated_email.backends.vanilla_django import TemplateBackend
TEMPLATED_EMAIL_BACKEND = TemplateBackend

Sending templated emails

Example usage using vanilla_django TemplateBackend backend

Python to send mail:

from templated_email import send_templated_mail
send_templated_mail(
        template_name='welcome',
        from_email='[e-mail]',
        recipient_list=['[e-mail]'],
        context={
            'username':request.user.username,
            'full_name':request.user.get_full_name(),
            'signup_date':request.user.date_joined
        },
        # Optional:
        # cc=['[e-mail]'],
        # bcc=['[e-mail]'],
        # headers={'My-Custom-Header':'Custom Value'},
        # template_prefix="my_emails/",
        # template_suffix="email",
)

If you would like finer control on sending the email, you can use get_templated_email, which will return a django EmailMessage object, prepared using the vanilla_django backend:

from templated_email import get_templated_mail
get_templated_mail(
        template_name='welcome',
        from_email='[e-mail]',
        to=['[e-mail]'],
        context={
            'username':request.user.username,
            'full_name':request.user.get_full_name(),
            'signup_date':request.user.date_joined
        },
        # Optional:
        # cc=['[e-mail]'],
        # bcc=['[e-mail]'],
        # headers={'My-Custom-Header':'Custom Value'},
        # template_prefix="my_emails/",
        # template_suffix="email",
)

You can also cc and bcc recipients using cc=[‘[e-mail]’].

Your template

The templated_email/ directory needs to be the templates directory.

The backend will look in my_app/templates/templated_email/welcome.email

{% block subject %}My subject for {{username}}{% endblock %}
{% block plain %}
  Hi {{full_name}},

  You just signed up for my website, using:
      username: {{username}}
      join date: {{signup_date}}

  Thanks, you rock!
{% endblock %}

If you want to include an HTML part to your emails, simply use the ‘html’ block

{% block html %}
  <p>Hi {{full_name}},</p>

  <p>You just signed up for my website, using:
      <dl>
        <dt>username</dt><dd>{{username}}</dd>
        <dt>join date</dt><dd>{{signup_date}}</dd>
      </dl>
  </p>

  <p>Thanks, you rock!</p>
{% endblock %}

The plain part can also be calculated from the HTML using html2text. If you don’t specify the plain block and html2text package is installed, the plain part will be calculated from the HTML part. You can disable this behaviour in settings.py

TEMPLATED_EMAIL_AUTO_PLAIN = False

You can globally override the template dir, and file extension using the following variables in settings.py

TEMPLATED_EMAIL_TEMPLATE_DIR = 'templated_email/' #use '' for top level template dir, ensure there is a trailing slash
TEMPLATED_EMAIL_FILE_EXTENSION = 'email'

You can also set a value for template_prefix and template_suffix for every time you call send_templated_mail, if you wish to store a set of templates in a different directory. Remember to include a trailing slash.

Using with Django Anymail

Anymail integrates several transactional email service providers (ESPs) into Django, with a consistent API that lets you use ESP-added features without locking your code to a particular ESP. It supports Mailgun, Postmark, SendGrid, SparkPost and more.

You can use it with django-templated-email, just follow their instructions in their quick start to configure it.

Optionally you can use their custom EmailMessage class with django-templated-email by using the following settings:

# This replaces django.core.mail.EmailMessage TEMPLATED_EMAIL_EMAIL_MESSAGE_CLASS=’anymail.message.AnymailMessage’

# This replaces django.core.mail.EmailMultiAlternatives TEMPLATED_EMAIL_EMAIL_MULTIALTERNATIVES_CLASS=’anymail.message.AnymailMessage’

Future Plans

See https://github.com/vintasoftware/django-templated-email/issues?state=open

Using django_templated_email in 3rd party applications

If you would like to use django_templated_email to handle mail in a reusable application, you should note that:

• Your calls to send_templated_mail should set a value for template_dir, so you can keep copies of your app-specific templates local to your app (although the loader will find your email templates if you store them in <your app>/templates/templated_email, if TEMPLATED_EMAIL_TEMPLATE_DIR has not been overidden)

• If you do (and you should) set a value for template_dir, remember to include a trailing slash, i.e. ‘my_app_email/’

• The deployed app may use a different backend which doesn’t use the django templating backend, and as such make a note in your README warning developers that if they are using django_templated_email already, with a different backend, they will need to ensure their email provider can send all your templates (ideally enumerate those somewhere convenient)

Notes on specific backends

Using vanilla_django

This is the default backend, and as such requires no special configuration, and will work out of the box. By default it assumes the following settings (should you wish to override them):

TEMPLATED_EMAIL_TEMPLATE_DIR = 'templated_email/' #Use '' for top level template dir
TEMPLATED_EMAIL_FILE_EXTENSION = 'email'

For legacy purposes you can specify email subjects in your settings file (but, the preferred method is to use a {% block subject %} in your template):

TEMPLATED_EMAIL_DJANGO_SUBJECTS = {
    'welcome':'Welcome to my website',
}

Additionally you can call send_templated_mail and optionally override the following parameters:

template_prefix='your_template_dir/'  # Override where the method looks for email templates (alternatively, use template_dir)
template_suffix='email'               # Override the file extension of the email templates (alternatively, use file_extension)
cc=['[e-mail]']              # Set a CC on the mail
bcc=['[e-mail]']             # Set a BCC on the mail
template_dir='your_template_dir/'     # Override where the method looks for email templates
connection=your_connection            # Takes a django mail backend connection, created using **django.core.mail.get_connection**
auth_user='username'                  # Override the user that the django mail backend uses, per **django.core.mail.send_mail**
auth_password='password'              # Override the password that the django mail backend uses, per **django.core.mail.send_mail**