Does Django have HTML helpers?

Question

Does Django have any template tags to generate common HTML markup? For example, I know that I can get a url using

{% url mapper.views.foo %} 

But that only gives me the URL and not the HTML code to create the link. Does Django have anything similar to Rails' link_to helper? I found django-helpers but since this is a common thing I thought Django would have something built-in.

Answer 1

No it doesn't.

James Bennett answered a similar question a while back, regarding Rails' built-in JavaScript helpers.

It's really unlikely that Django will ever have 'helper' functionality built-in. The reason, if I understand correctly, has to do with Django's core philosophy of keeping things loosely coupled. Having that kind of helper functionality built-in leads to coupling Django with a specific JavaScript library or (in your case) html document type.

EG. What happens if/when HTML 5 is finally implemented and Django is generating HTML 4 or XHTML markup?

Having said that, Django's template framework is really flexible, and it wouldn't be terribly difficult to write your own tags/filters that did what you wanted. I'm mostly a designer myself, and I've been able to put together a couple custom tags that worked like a charm.

Answer 2

The purpose of helpers is not, as others here imply, to help developers who don't know how to write HTML. The purpose is to encapsulate common functionality -- so you don't need to write the same thing a thousand times -- and to provide a single place to edit common HTML used throughout your app.

It's the same reason templates and SSI are useful -- not because people don't know how to write the HTML in their headers and footers, but sometimes you want to write it just once.

EG. What happens if/when HTML 5 is finally implemented and Django is generating HTML 4 or XHTML markup?

Same thing that happens when HTML 5 is implemented and all your templates are written in repetitive HTML, except a lot easier.

The other posts have already answered the question, linking to the docs on custom template tags; you can use tags and filters to build your own, but no, there aren't any built in.