djangothis 0.9

Serve static files and django templates in current folder.

This is a command line utility that django-izes the current folder. This is primarily for prototyping, but can also be used for full fledged blog site.

Lets say the current folder contains a bunch of html file, this utility runs a django server, and makes the files available through it. The html files can use django’s powerful template inheritance.

Read: djangothis for blogging.

Django Templates

Any html file in the current folder is treated as a django template and is mapped to a URL mapping their location on disk. Eg index.html will become available on /index.html and so on.

Full power of django templates is available to these html files, so they can use template inheritance etc. This make creating a prototype a breeze as multiple files can inherit the look and feel of a common base.html.

Config

djangothis supports configuring django using config.yaml file if present in current folder. It can be used configure middleware, template context processors etc.

Static files

If there is a folder named static in current folder, the content of that folder will also become available on /static/ url. So static/style.css will be served on /static/style.css.

This utility also maps request to /favicon.ico to /static/favicon.ico.

views.py and forms.py

Further if file names views.py or forms.py exist, the utility “imports” them, and if those files use importd style “decorated” views or forms, they too become available (example).

Fake Ajax

Also if there is a ajax.yaml file in current folder, this utility will look for request the requested path in the yaml file, and if it exists, appropriate JSON will be returned.

Custom Tag Libraries

A folder named templatetags in current folder can be created with __init__.py and django template tag libraries, and djangothis will make them available to your templates.

Custom Commands

The current folder can contain a folder cmds, which can have django management commands stored in it, along with an __init__.py.

The command can be executed by running $ djangothis commandname.

Themes

djangothis supports theming. Theme can be placed in a special folder _theme. This folder is placed at the beginning of template dirs settings, so any template can be “overridden” by placing in it.

For the purpose of special theme specific static files, they can be placed in side _theme folder, and will be accessible via /theme/ url. Eg if there is a css file _theme/style.css, it can be accessed via /theme/style.css.

With these two features themes can be distributed as self contained folder.

Commands, Views, Custom TemplateTags and Forms in Themes

If needed a theme can contain cmds folder, templatetags folder, views.py and forms.py which will be included. For this feature to work the _theme folder needs to also contain __init__.py.

Auto Reload

The debug server reloads itself when config.yaml or ajax.yaml file is updated. Further any theme can call djangothis.watchfile(file_path) to watch a file for modifications, so that debug server can be reloaded.

Using djangothis as a static site generator

$ wget -m http://localhost:8000

Can be used to create a local mirror.

Replacing jekyll, pelican etc

djangothis can be used to replace jekyll, pelican etc. For this an appropriate views.py file has to be written and placed in the current folder or in _theme folder, which will define views for / or /blog/, that view can read the content of _posts for example, generate appropriate summary and links, define views for post etc, which serve the page.

My person website, amitu.com is powered by this, which used to be jekyll powered. The source is available on djangothis-jekyll.

Example site

• amitu.com, source.

• html5 boilerplate for djangothis.

Installation and Usage

To install:

$ pip install djangothis

To run from any folder that contains files as described above:

$ djangothis
Validating models...

0 errors found
Django version 1.4.1, using settings None
Development server is running at http://127.0.0.1:8000/
Quit the server with CONTROL-C.