Django view - load template from calling app's dir first

Question

I try to keep a somewhat consistent naming scheme on my HTML templates. I.e. index.html for main, delete.html for delete page and so forth. But the app_directories loader always seems to load the template from the app that's first alphabetically.

Is there any way to always check for a match in the calling app's templates directory first?

Relevant settings in my settings.py:

PROJECT_PATH = os.path.realpath(os.path.dirname(__file__))  TEMPLATE_LOADERS = (     'django.template.loaders.app_directories.load_template_source',     'django.template.loaders.filesystem.load_template_source', ) TEMPLATE_DIRS = (     os.path.join(PROJECT_PATH, 'templates'), ) 

I've tried changing the order of TEMPLATE_LOADERS, without success.

---

Edit as requested by Ashok:

Dir structure of each app:

templates/     index.html     add.html     delete.html     create.html models.py test.py admin.py views.py 

In each app's views.py:

def index(request):     # code...     return render_to_response('index.html', locals())  def add(request):     # code...     return render_to_response('add.html', locals())  def delete(request):     # code...     return render_to_response('delete.html', locals())  def update(request):     # code...     return render_to_response('update.html', locals()) 

Answer 1

The reason for this is that the app_directories loader is essentially the same as adding each app's template folder to the TEMPLATE_DIRS setting, e.g. like

TEMPLATE_DIRS = (     os.path.join(PROJECT_PATH, 'app1', 'templates'),     os.path.join(PROJECT_PATH, 'app2', 'template'),     ...     os.path.join(PROJECT_PATH, 'templates'), ) 

The problem with this is that as you mentioned, the index.html will always be found in app1/templates/index.html instead of any other app. There is no easy solution to magically fix this behavior without modifying the app_directories loader and using introspection or passing along app information, which gets a bit complicated. An easier solution:

• Keep your settings.py as-is
• Add a subdirectory in each app's templates folder with the name of the app
• Use the templates in views like 'app1/index.html' or 'app2/index.html'

For a more concrete example:

project     app1         templates             app1                 index.html                 add.html                 ...         models.py         views.py         ...     app2         ... 

Then in the views:

def index(request):     return render_to_response('app1/index.html', locals()) 

You could even write a wrapper to automate prepending the app name to all your views, and even that could be extended to use introspection, e.g.:

def render(template, data=None):     return render_to_response(__name__.split(".")[-2] + '/' + template, data)  def index(request):     return render('index.html', locals()) 

The _____name_____.split(".")[-2] assumes the file is within a package, so it will turn e.g. 'app1.views' into 'app1' to prepend to the template name. This also assumes a user will never rename your app without also renaming the folder in the templates directory, which may not be a safe assumption to make and in that case just hard-code the name of the folder in the templates directory.

Answer 2

I know this is an old thread, but I made something reusable, that allows for simpler namespacing. You could load the following as a Template Loader. It will find appname/index.html in appname/templates/index.html.

Gist available here: https://gist.github.com/871567

""" Wrapper for loading templates from "templates" directories in INSTALLED_APPS packages, prefixed by the appname for namespacing.  This loader finds `appname/templates/index.html` when looking for something of the form `appname/index.html`. """  from django.template import TemplateDoesNotExist from django.template.loaders.app_directories import app_template_dirs, Loader as BaseAppLoader  class Loader(BaseAppLoader):     '''     Modified AppDirecotry Template Loader that allows namespacing templates     with the name of their app, without requiring an extra subdirectory     in the form of `appname/templates/appname`.     '''     def load_template_source(self, template_name, template_dirs=None):         try:             app_name, template_path = template_name.split('/', 1)         except ValueError:             raise TemplateDoesNotExist(template_name)          if not template_dirs:             template_dirs = (d for d in app_template_dirs if                     d.endswith('/%s/templates' % app_name))          return iter(super(Loader, self).load_template_source(template_path,                 template_dirs))