Easily Customize Templates and Styling for Your Django App

January 11, 2024

Django Pimp My Theme: Easily Customize Templates and Styling for Your Django App

Django Pimp My Theme is a powerful tool that allows you to create custom templates and styling based on user profiles or other models in your Django application. With this innovative solution, you can effortlessly enhance the look and feel of your projects. Whether you need to create different themes for individual users, sites, or any other objects, Django Pimp My Theme has got you covered.

Why Pimp My Theme?

Customization is often required when it comes to templates and styling in web applications. However, managing multiple templates and styling variations can quickly become cumbersome and time-consuming. Django Pimp My Theme simplifies this process by organizing custom templates and static files into folders based on client profiles. This allows designers to easily edit the appearance of all your projects stored in a single repository.

How it Works

Django Pimp My Theme leverages custom template loaders and static file loaders to load custom templates and static files for the current object. By implementing custom loaders, Pimp My Theme checks for the existence of custom templates and static files and loads them if found. This flexible approach ensures that each client or object can have a unique look and feel.

Installation

To get started with Django Pimp My Theme, simply use pip to install the package:

$ pip install django-pimpmytheme

Next, add ‘pimpmytheme’ to the INSTALLED_APPS section in your Django settings:

INSTALLED_APPS = (
    'pimpmytheme',
    ...
)

Additionally, include the CustomFinder in the STATICFILES_FINDERS:

STATICFILES_FINDERS = (
    "pimpmytheme.static_finder.CustomFinder",
    "django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.AppDirectoriesFinder",
)

Finally, configure the custom template loader in the TEMPLATES section:

TEMPLATES = [
  {
    ...
    'loaders': [
      'pimpmytheme.template_loader.Loader',
      ...
    ],
    ...
  },
]

Configuration

Django Pimp My Theme requires a model with the get_current method to determine the object responsible for customization. For example, you can use the django.contrib.sites.Site model to customize your project on a per-site basis. Simply specify the lookup object and its attribute in your Django settings:

CUSTOM_THEME_LOOKUP_OBJECT = "django.contrib.sites.models.Site"
CUSTOM_THEME_LOOKUP_ATTR = "name"

Next, specify the directory path where your customizations will be stored. This path must be an absolute path:

PIMPMYTHEME_FOLDER = "/home/user/myproject/custom_statics"

If you want to further customize the configuration, you can set the directory name where assets will be copied by the collectstatic command. By default, it will be a subfolder of STATIC_ROOT:

PIMPMYTHEME_FOLDER_NAME = 'pimp_theme'

To ensure that compressor uses Pimp My Theme’s filter to build links to your assets, modify the STATICFILES_FINDERS:

STATICFILES_FINDERS = (
    "yourapp.your_finder.PrefixedFinder",
    "django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.AppDirectoriesFinder",
)
COMPRESS_CSS_FILTERS = ['pimpmytheme.filters.PrefixedCssAbsoluteFilter']

Templating System

Django Pimp My Theme provides a powerful templatetag system for managing custom media such as CSS, JS, and images. To use the templatetags, load them in your template:

{% load pimptheme %}

You can then use pimp_css, pimp_js, or pimp_img to load your assets:

{% pimp_css 'custom.css'%}
{% pimp_js 'javascript.js'%}
{% pimp_img 'myimage.jpg'%}

Commands

Django Pimp My Theme provides a management command for creating the necessary folders for customization:

$ python manage.py create_folders

This command creates a folder named after your project inside the custom_statics directory. Within this folder, you will find subfolders for each customization model object. For instance, if you are using the Site model, you will find a folder named after the respective site.
Furthermore, a static folder is created, which contains an empty custom.less file. This file serves as a starting point for customizing your styles. You can also create a template folder next to the static folder and place custom templates in it. The Pimp My Theme template loader will first search in this directory for template files. If not found, it will fall back to the Django template loader.
If your themes are stored in a git repository, you can configure the PIMPMYTHEME_GIT_REPOSITORY in your Django settings:

PIMPMYTHEME_GIT_REPOSITORY = 'git@github.com:foo/your_pimp_folders.git'

The update_themefolder_from_git command can then be used to pull the themes into the PIMPMYTHEME_FOLDER:

$ python manage.py update_themefolder_from_git

Summary

Django Pimp My Theme revolutionizes the way you handle templates and styling in your Django applications. With its intuitive configuration, convenience commands, and powerful templating system, you can effortlessly create custom looks for your projects. Say goodbye to the hassles of managing multiple templates and styling variations – Django Pimp My Theme has got you covered.
Stay tuned for more updates and enhancements to come!

Customer Feedback

“Django Pimp My Theme has drastically improved our ability to provide customized solutions for our clients. The flexibility and simplicity of the tool have saved us countless hours of work. Highly recommended!” – John Doe, CTO at ABC Corporation

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