I like to write HTML templates separately from the main app and keep the front-end code in its own repository. I used to use a combination of server side includes (SSI) and Ant scripts for speeding up the process and exporting the optimised assets to the main app repository.
This is an attempt to improve on the initial concept while developing my python and django skills.
This app is tightly coupled with a specific Apache configuration using vhost aliases to serve django templates from anywhere on the developer's machine.
This is a work in progress. Eventually, I want to add functionality to export optimised CSS and JS assets so they can be imported into a django app.
Where template projects are located on the developer's machine. Each project is stored in a folder named after it's slug in the DB.
The path relative path to a template project's root in which JSON data files are located. See Dummy Data information below.
The domain used for accessing template projects. For example, if set to proto.local,
individual projects can be accessed via [project_slug].proto.local. This must reflect
the ServerAlias setting in the Apache vhost:
ServerAlias *.proto.local
On top of the standard django template tags and filters django-prototype adds the following prototyping tags:
Repeats the HTML fragment n times.
Usage format:
{% repeat n %}
... HTML fragment ...
{% endrepeat %}
Inserts an image placeholder URL from dummyimage.com
Usage format:
{% dummyimage width height [background] [foreground] [as image_url] %}
width and height are self explanatory
background and foreground are hex code values for the placeholder colors
if image_url is provided, the tag writes the URL to this variable instead of outputting it
Use this tag to simulate server processing time.
Usage format::
{% wait seconds %}
seconds is the number of seconds to wait before serving the template
An improved version of the lorem tag included in django.contrib.webdesign
Creates random Latin text useful for providing test data in templates.
Usage format:
{% lorem [count] [method] [random] %}
count is a number (or variable) containing the number of paragraphs or
words to generate (default is 1).
method is either w for words, s for a capitalized sentence,
t for a title cased sentence, p for HTML paragraphs, b for
plain-text paragraph blocks (default is b).
random is the word random, which if given, does not use the common
paragraph (starting "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer...").
Examples:
-
{% lorem %}will output the common "lorem ipsum" paragraph -
{% lorem 3 p %}will output the common "lorem ipsum" paragraph and two random paragraphs each wrapped in HTML<p>tags -
{% lorem 2 w random %}will output two random latin words
Returns script tag for including jQuery or MooTools libraries from Google CDN
See http://code.google.com/apis/libraries/devguide.html for available versions
Usage format:
{% jquery version [minified] %}
{% jqueryui version [minified] %}
{% mootools version [minified] %}
if minified is 1, loads the minified or compressed version of the library
Special tag for displaying the current project's available dummy data structures.
django-prototype automatically parses the data folder of your project for json files and makes these data
structures available to your templates. By default, the data folder is in the root of your project but this
is configurable on a per-project basis. For example, if you place a json file named products in the data
folder, the resulting data structure can be used in a for loop in your templates:
{% for product in project.data.products %}
...
{% endfor %}
Tested on python 2.6.4.
The following libraries are required:
- django 1.4.2
The following Apache modules are required:
- mod_wsgi
- mod_rewrite
- mod_alias
- mod_vhost_alias
<VirtualHost *:80>
# Admin host name
ServerName proto.local
# Alias for individual projects
# In the example below, individual projects are accessed via [project_slug].proto.local
ServerAlias *.proto.local
UseCanonicalName Off
# Set document root to template project (from subdomain or server alias)
# %1 is replaced with first part of server name
VirtualDocumentRoot /path/to/template/projects/%1
DocumentRoot /path/to/template/projects
WSGIScriptAlias /__proto__ /path/to/django-prototype/public/wsgi.py
RewriteEngine On
# Direct requests to django app if not static assets
# icons and error and in there to allow default apache server assets
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^([^\.]+)\.proto\.local$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/(__proto__)
RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/%1%{REQUEST_URI} !-f
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /__proto__$1 [QSA,PT,L]
</VirtualHost>