How to use django-sorting

django-sorting allows for easy sorting, and sorting links generation without modifying your views.

There are really 5 steps to setting it up with your projects.

1. List this application in the INSTALLED_APPS portion of your settings file. Your settings file might look something like:

   INSTALLED_APPS = (
       # ...
       'django_sorting',
   )
   

2. Install the sorting middleware. Your settings file might look something like:

   MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES = (
       # ...
       'django_sorting.middleware.SortingMiddleware',
   )
   

3. If it's not already added in your setup, add the request context processor. Note that context processors are set by default implicitly, so to set them explicitly, you need to copy and paste this code into your under the value TEMPLATE_CONTEXT_PROCESSORS:

   ("django.core.context_processors.auth",
    "django.core.context_processors.debug",
    "django.core.context_processors.i18n",
    "django.core.context_processors.media",
    "django.core.context_processors.request")
   

4. Add this line at the top of your template to load the sorting tags:

   {% load sorting_tags %}
   

5. Decide on a variable that you would like to sort, and use the autosort tag on that variable before iterating over it:

   {% autosort object_list %}
   

6. Now, you want to display different headers with links to sort your objects_list:

   <tr>
       <th>{% anchor first_name _("Name") %}</th>
       <th>{% anchor creation_date _("Creation") %}</th>
   </tr>
   

   The first argument is a field or an attribute of the objects list, and the second one (optional) is a title that would be displayed. The previous snippet will be rendered like this in French:

   <tr>
       <th><a href="/path/to/your/view/?sort=first_name" title="Nom">Nom</a></th>
       <th><a href="/path/to/your/view/?sort=creation_date" title="Création">Création</a></th>
   </tr>
   

   If your application doesn't support internationalization, you can use a simple {% anchor first_name Name %}.

That's it!