Setup

1. Get the source from the Git repository or install it from the Python Package Index by running pip install django-dbtemplates.

2. Follow the instructions in the INSTALL file

3. Edit the settings.py of your Django site:

   • Add dbtemplates to the INSTALLED_APPS setting

     Check if django.contrib.sites and django.contrib.admin are in INSTALLED_APPS and add if necessary.

     It should look something like this:

     INSTALLED_APPS = (
         'django.contrib.auth',
         'django.contrib.contenttypes',
         'django.contrib.sessions',
         'django.contrib.sites',
         'django.contrib.admin',
         'django.contrib.flatpages',
         # ..
         'dbtemplates',
     )
     

   • Add dbtemplates.loader.Loader to the TEMPLATES.OPTIONS.loaders list in the settings.py of your Django project.

     It should look something like this:

     TEMPLATES = [
       {
           'BACKEND': 'django.template.backends.django.DjangoTemplates',
           'DIRS': [ # your template dirs here
           ],
           'APP_DIRS': False,
           'OPTIONS': {
               'context_processors': [
                   'django.contrib.auth.context_processors.auth',
                   'django.template.context_processors.debug',
                   'django.template.context_processors.i18n',
                   'django.template.context_processors.media',
                   'django.template.context_processors.static',
                   'django.template.context_processors.tz',
                   'django.contrib.messages.context_processors.messages',
                   'django.template.context_processors.request',
               ],
               'loaders': [
                   'django.template.loaders.filesystem.Loader',
                   'django.template.loaders.app_directories.Loader',
                   'dbtemplates.loader.Loader',
               ],
           },
       },
     

     ]

     The order of TEMPLATES.OPTIONS.loaders is important. In the former example, templates from the database will be used as a fallback (ie. when the template does not exists in other locations). If you want the template from the database to be used to override templates in other locations, put dbtemplates.loader.Loader at the beginning of loaders.

4. Sync your database python manage.py migrate

5. Restart your Django server

Usage

Creating database templates is pretty simple: Just open the admin interface of your Django-based site in your browser and click on “Templates” in the “Database templates” section.

There you only need to fill in the name field with the identifier, Django is supposed to use while searching for templates, e.g. blog/entry_list.html. The content field should be filled with the content of your template.

Optionally, by leaving the content field empty you are able to tell dbtemplates to look for a template with the name by using Django’s other template loaders. For example, if you have a template called blog/entry_list.html on your file system and want to save the templates contents in the database, you just need to leave the content field empty to automatically populate it. That’s especially useful if you don’t want to copy and paste its content manually to the textarea.