Widgeter

A simple engine for django backend widgets.

Widgets are snippets of code that render into a template. They can be used when you need to include a template with a context that is not available in the front end.

Moreover, widgets can be added by reusable apps without the need for the main project to know what their requirements are.

Features

• Creation of custom widgets in reusable apps
• Rendering of widgets by name
• Rendering of widget blocks without previous knowledge of widget names
• Autodiscovery of widgets from all installed apps

Installation

1. Install the package using pip install django-widgeter
2. Add widgeter to your INSTALLED_APPS in settings.py

Defining a Widget

Add a widgets.py file on your application with the following statements.

• Widgets can be defined with a template (and optionally a context):

    from widgeter.core import Widget
    
    class HelloWorld(Widget):
        template = 'hello_world/widget.html'
  
        def get_context(self, context, options=None):
            return { 'message': u'Hello World!' }
  

  or with a render function:

    from widgeter.core import Widget
    
    class HelloWorld(Widget):
        def render(self, context, options=None):
            return u'Hello world!'
  
  

• Register your widget:

    from widgeter.registry import registry
  
    registry.register('hello_world', HelloWorld())
  

Rendering a Widget

On a template you first have to load the template tags and then render the particular widget:

  {% load widgeter %}
  {% widget "hello_world" %}

You can also pass variables to your widget:

  {% load widgeter %}
  {% widget "hello_world" current_user %}

Using Blocks

Widget blocks allow you to render widgets without previously knowing the names for them. The autodiscovery process will add them to the registry and you can the look them up by block name. Priorities can also be assigned to render them in order.

• First define a block on the widget:

    from widgeter.core import Widget
    
    class HelloWorld(Widget):
        block = 'home'
        priority = '1'
        template = 'hello_world/widget.html'
  
        def get_context(self, context, options=None):
            return { 'message': u'Hello World!' }
  

• Then, on the template, use the widget_block tag:

    {% load widgeter %}
    {% widget_block "home" current_user %}
  

Running the Tests

You can run the tests with via::

python setup.py test

or::

python runtests.py

Inspiration

This project is based on https://github.com/marcinn/django-widgets but updated for new versions of Django.