django-twitter-bootstrap 3.3.0

Provides a Django app whose static folder contains Bootstrap assets

Overview

This package provides a Django app whose static folder contains the sources of Bootstrap, nothing more and nothing less. The un-minified LESS and javascript sources are included to be integrated into your Django site as you see fit. If you simply want to use the minified CSS and JS files provided by the Bootstrap project, you probably don’t need this anyway.

Further goals of this project include:

• To include Bootstrap as a git submodule, so as to include specific release tags and avoid the mess of managing a copy of Bootstrap.

• To provide versions that mirror Bootstrap releases going forward.

And that’s it! Bootstrap pre-packaged for Django.

I found that other similar projects:

• Did not keep up with recent versions of Bootstrap.

• Simply made a copy of the Bootstrap sources, messy and unnecessary.

• Tied the packaging to their own clever template tags or other Django components. You should have your choice of these things apart from this packaging.

Setup

NOTE The paths of the included bootstrap assets have now been namespaced within the app’s static folder. The less and js folders now reside within a twitter_bootstrap folder.

First, install the app:

pip install django-twitter-bootstrap==3.3.0

Then include it in your Django project:

# settings.py:

INSTALLED_APPS = (
    ...
    'twitter_bootstrap',
    ...
)

This also assumes you haven’t removed django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.AppDirectoriesFinder from the STATICFILES_FINDERS config setting.

Provided staticfiles

Of course what’s provided is just Bootstrap, but more specifically…

glyphicons

These don’t need to be specified or configured in your project, but they are included all the same.

• twitter_bootstrap/fonts/glyphicons-halflings-regular.eot

• twitter_bootstrap/fonts/glyphicons-halflings-regular.svg

• twitter_bootstrap/fonts/glyphicons-halflings-regular.ttf

• twitter_bootstrap/fonts/glyphicons-halflings-regular.woff

LESS

• twitter_bootstrap/less/bootstrap.less

Also included are lots of other LESS files included by the above that aren’t worth listing out. The above file is the common entry point for usage of Bootstrap styles.

JavaScript

Unlike the LESS sources, the javascript modules each represent a feature set that you may or may not want to include in your site. These files are typically hand-picked based on the needs of your site. Please check the Bootstrap documentation for info on which of these modules depends on others.

• twitter_bootstrap/js/transition.js

• twitter_bootstrap/js/modal.js

• twitter_bootstrap/js/dropdown.js

• twitter_bootstrap/js/scrollspy.js

• twitter_bootstrap/js/tab.js

• twitter_bootstrap/js/tooltip.js

• twitter_bootstrap/js/popover.js

• twitter_bootstrap/js/alert.js

• twitter_bootstrap/js/button.js

• twitter_bootstrap/js/collapse.js

• twitter_bootstrap/js/carousel.js

• twitter_bootstrap/js/affix.js

Plain Usage

If you’re not using an asset manager, you can just include them as usual in your site templates:

{% load staticfiles %}
...
<script type="text/javascript" src="{% static 'twitter_bootstrap/js/transition.js' %}"></script>
...

Usage with an asset pipeline

Of course I recommend you not go plain, and instead use an asset manager that helps with the filtering, concatenating, minification, and other processing of your static assets. One such manager is django-pipeline.

• Follow the setup instructions for django-pipeline

• Define asset groups which provide Bootstrap

• Use asset groups in your templates.

Configuration

Create asset groups including the bootstrap LESS and Javascript you want to include:

# settings.py

PIPELINE_CSS = {
    ...
    'bootstrap': {
        'source_filenames': (
            'twitter_bootstrap/less/bootstrap.less',
        ),
        'output_filename': 'css/b.css',
        'extra_context': {
            'media': 'screen,projection',
        },
    },
    ...
}

PIPELINE_JS = {
    ...
    'bootstrap': {
        'source_filenames': (
          'twitter_bootstrap/js/transition.js',
          'twitter_bootstrap/js/modal.js',
          'twitter_bootstrap/js/dropdown.js',
          'twitter_bootstrap/js/scrollspy.js',
          'twitter_bootstrap/js/tab.js',
          'twitter_bootstrap/js/tooltip.js',
          'twitter_bootstrap/js/popover.js',
          'twitter_bootstrap/js/alert.js',
          'twitter_bootstrap/js/button.js',
          'twitter_bootstrap/js/collapse.js',
          'twitter_bootstrap/js/carousel.js',
          'twitter_bootstrap/js/affix.js',
        ),
        'output_filename': 'js/b.js',
    },
    ...
}

Of course you need to set up a LESS compiler for pipeline to use when processing the styles:

# settings.py

PIPELINE_COMPILERS = (
    'pipeline.compilers.less.LessCompiler',
)

Then, in the PIPELINE_LESS_ARGUMENTS setting, supply an --include option which tells lessc where bootstrap LESS sources and any of your own live:

# settings.py

import os

# TODO update this to reflect where your settings live relative to the project root
BASE_DIR = os.path.dirname(os.path.dirname(__file__))

my_app_less = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'my_app', 'static', 'less')

# For apps outside of your project, it's simpler to import them to find their root folders
import twitter_bootstrap
bootstrap_less = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(twitter_bootstrap.__file__), 'static', 'less')

PIPELINE_LESS_ARGUMENTS = u'--include-path={}'.format(os.pathsep.join([bootstrap_less, my_app_less]))

Please note that for any LESS sources outside of your project root, usually these are installed Django packages, it is simpler to import the package and determine the package root from the import module’s __file__ attribute.

Template setup

A sample Django template using the assets:

...
{% load compressed %}
...
<head>
  ...
  {% compressed_css 'bootstrap' %}
  ...
</head>
<body>
  ...
  {% compressed_js 'bootstrap' %}
  ...
</body>
</html>

That’s it. Enjoy!

Version ranges matching bootstrap versions

As stated above in the goals, versions of this package should match versions of Bootstrap, where available. This presents something of a problem if and when we need to make updates to the packaging here. We can’t just upgrade any of the three common components of semantic versioning, because those map to versions of Bootstrap. So, we’ll use revisions when needed.

E.g., suppose we have django-twitter-bootstrap 3.2.0 which packages Bootstrap 3.2.0. If we need to enhance or fix the packaging, we release it as revised version 3.2.0-1.

Therefore, if you’re getting a packaging for the first time you could specify it as a very tight range of that target version or no less than the next patch level version. E.g., target 3.2.0 with >=3.2.0,<3.2.1. Each of these captures all revisions to packagings targeting a specific version of Bootstrap.

Finally, it should be re-iterated that the need for this should be the exception and versions should generally mirror Bootstrap more directly going forward.