WebFlash.rst

Displaying Flash/Notice Messages

TurboGears provides a way to display short messages inside the current or next page. This works by using the WebFlash module which stores short text messages inside a cookie so that it can be retrieved when needed.

Default Setup

By Default the master.html of a quickstarted project provides a div where flash messages will be displayed, this is achieved with the following lines of code:

<py:with vars="flash=tg.flash_obj.render('flash', use_js=False)">
    <div py:if="flash" py:replace="Markup(flash)" />
</py:with>

The tg.flash_obj is the WebFlash object which is available inside any rendered template. This object permits to retrieve the current flash message and display it.

Storing Flash Messages

Flash messages can be stored using the tg.flash command this allows to store a message with a status option to configure the flash style.

tg.flash('Message', 'status')

If the method that called flash performs a redirect the flash will be visible inside the redirected page. If the method directly exposes a template the flash will be visible inside the template itself.

Styling the Flash

By default warning, error, info, ok statuses provide a style. Any number of statuses can be configured using plain css:

#flash .ok {
    background:#d8ecd8 url(../images/ok.png) no-repeat scroll 10px center;
}

#flash .warning {
    background:#fff483 url(../images/warning.png) no-repeat scroll 10px center;
}

#flash .error {
    background:#f9c5c1 url(../images/error.png) no-repeat scroll 10px center;
}

#flash .info {
    background:#EEEEFF url(../images/info.png) no-repeat scroll 10px center;
}