I am creating a website from scratch where I am planning to make it dynamically multilingual. Tools I use are:
MongoDB for my database (atlas)
pymongo to connect to DB
django as my framework env
My idea is to have a website that can have multiple languages as necessary. languages can be RTL and LTR. I can add any language in a form of json file that has an item against its translation to the desired language, for instance english-french json file would be:
{"door":"porte"}
{"direction": "LTR"}
by adding such a file my website should be able to have the right information regarding the french language for instance and everything should appear in french correctly as specified in the json file. I plan to have two types of html pages in my DB for each of my website pages; one for "RTL" and one for "LTR", I render them based on the request of the user. (language chosen in the front end). In translation process, after picking the right orientation of the language, I use django template variables in my html to place the right language using the correct json file of the language, all my json files are stored in the database, and retrieved by the desired lanaguge chosen by the user.
I have couple of questions:
Am I thinking in the right direction?! or I am re-inventing the wheel and there are other tools that does the job for me?!
Is there a best practice for international websites?!
Is there any tool that can help does that more easily?
any suggestions or comments is highly appreciated.
Thank you
You are definitely re-inventing the wheel. Django already comes with i18n support.
This works for nearly all elements.
As described here:
https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.1/topics/i18n/
I personally would recommend using gettext_lazy() as it makes things easier, but that's just my taste.
There is of course also a template tag called {% trans "Whatever" %}
You will end up with text files that you can simply edit and also use SaaS if you want a fancy user interface.
Related
This is not a HOWTO question, as it, as such, has been answered before here
I am trying to integrate Django with modern frontend framework, and I found that it is possible to store and render Django templates from models. Since it is not a standard, I am wondering what are the advantages (or disadvantages if that's the case) of file based templates.
Reading though the documentation, I have seen that it is recommended to actually cache templates and models as much as possible for best performance, so why would it not be recommended to store templates in the database? It seems very convenient to me that in doing so pages can be edited from the admin panel (where you can add a code editor), which, along with the rest framework and a front end framework synergize very well.
From my research, the template tags and template language seem to work and the context can be passed in a view as well. the only thing I cannot figure out is the {include .. } tag, as it does not seem to point to a view. (although a custom tag cam be made to have this function)
Can such a setup be used in production? or are there security/performance/other concerns?
It's not recommended because templates are the developer's responsibility, not the site admin's.
Otherwise, there's not much performance difference between reading files directly from filesystem and from database.
One drawback of this approach is you don't get revision history (using git, mercurial etc). Sure, you can implement something similar to save the revisions in the database, but then why not use the better tools which already exist?
There's a Django flatpages app which lets you save HTML content in database. But the purpose of the app is to allow site admins to edit HTML content, such as information for an "About Us" page, because writing this info is not a developer's responsibility.
I'm new to working with Django and am developing for a client who wants to be able to change page content in the Django Admin. They need to be able to change the html of the index page without editing the files on the server.
I know about flatfiles but I'm not sure that's completely what I'm after as I can't display stuff such as Django forms for example.
EDIT: Kind of like how a CMS works but without the users/group stuff and be able to use Django View modules such as forms.
Any advice?
Thanks
Honestly, the scope of what you're looking for is too huge to cover in this format. There's a number of ways this could be done, but they're all going to require some work and customization based on the client's needs.
Flatpages could work if you allow HTML content and make sure the content is rendered as "safe" in the template. This really only covers the "content" area of the site, though. It wouldn't be wise to use flatpages for an entire site template, including header, sidebar, footer, etc.
You could create editable areas. So, you actually create models for things like headers, sidebars, footers, and modules within those areas, and then just pull them into the template as needed. Then, the client is only editing pieces of the template instead of responsible for the whole HTML document.
Forms are going to be a challenge, because they require backend-processing that requires a connected view. The client won't be able to just arbitrarily drop in some form code and have a form. But, you could use a third-party service form forms and just embed them in the available content regions. Or, there's a couple of django apps that try to implement a type of "form builder" in the admin. That might somehow let the client add a form via something like the shortcodes used in Wordpress, but you'd likely have to lay down some infrastructure to make that work.
At a certain point, stuff like this reaches a point of diminishing returns, though. The only way to allow total customization of the template is to drop down into the actual physical file and make changes there. You can make certain things easier for the client, but ultimately, they either need to scale back their customization needs or deal with the fact that they'll have to work with the filesystem.
I don't believe that is possible at this time. Of course you can edit your models but templates, I think not.
I would find out how much they need to change? If they plan a complete redesign every week then you're still looking for an answer. If they just need a dynamic front page then you can split it up into variables and let them edit sections of html. Much safer and less prone to breaking the html.
Say you have an existing database-backed Django site. Something simple, like single model containing a record for every minor league baseball team. The model is accessed by one view that lists all the teams, and another that accepts a slug and then creates a detail page all about that team.
Is there a good option for converting the app into a stack of baked out flat files, so that it could be served from a static file service like Amazon's S3?
I've toyed with Hyde but it's not clear to me how it applies to an existing site backed by a database.
Any advice would be very much appreciated. Thank you in advance.
django-medusa is largely unmaintained. These are some alternatives mentioned in the project's README:
django-bakery, built and maintained the lovely people at the Los Angeles Times Data Desk. (Read about it
here.)
The alsoicode/django-medusa fork, by Brandon
Taylor. Among other things, it's been
kept up to date for newer versions of Django.
django-freeze by Fabio Caccamo.
django-staticgen by Mishbah Razzaque.
I understand your intent, but any decent framework these days offers some sort of caching mecanism that alleviate the pains of dynamic content. With a properly implemented cache, the difference between static and dynamic will be trivial. Trust me.
Happy coding, friend.
A new one has just been announced, though it has existed and been used by its author for quite some time:
django-medusa.
I haven't tried using it yet, but it sure looks good: I will be!
I have a similar setup using Django but on GAE. I have created a build script which I use to build my static HTML files. Since GAE's version of Django templates is slightly different, this might need some testing.
But essentially you do something like
from django.template import Template, Context
from django.template.loader import get_template
t = get_template('template1.html') #Need to verify this. GAE template allows me to just call template.render(path, context). Not sure about pure Django templates
c = Context({ 'variable' : 'value'})
with open("file1.html", "w") as f:
f.write(t.render(c)) #This works for me, but if this doesn't in pure Django, try render_to_string
HTH
You are asking for a dynamic site to host in a static environment, that is impossible. The only way is to export all the files, put them into a static server. You can do it with wget, it will copy all the files and convert them to html.
One fallback of this problem is, it can only create html files, if there are links to the pages, ie. search forms etc. will not work, Javascript based linking may not work.
I'm not familiar with anything that will convert an existing django site to a static html site. It might be worth looking at the suite of new django/python PaaS providers. A site like this should be easy to get running on one of these platforms and it should be pretty cheap month to month.
Some providers you might want to checkout include:
Gondor.io
ep.io
Django Zoom
Say I need to have a templating system where a user can edit it online using an online editor.
So they can put if tags, looping tags etc., but ONLY for specific objects that I want to inject into the template.
Can this be made to be safe from security issues?
i.e. them somehow outputing sql connection string information or scripting things outside of the allowable tags and injected objects.
Yes, use a template engine that has sandboxing features, like jinja2
For some quick background, I'm an XHTML/CSS guy with some basic PHP knowledge. I'm trying to dip my feet into the Python pool, and so far understand how to start simple_server and access a simple Hello World return in the same .py file. This is the extent of what I understand though, heh.
How do I integrate the simple_server and your basic XHTML/CSS files? I want to start the server and automagically call, for instance, index.py (does it need to be .py?). Obviously within the index file I would have my markup and stylesheet and I would operate it like a normal site at that point.
My eventual goal is to get a basic message board going (post, edit, delete, user sessions). I realize I'll need access to a database, and I know my way around MySQL enough to not have to worry about those portions.
Thanks for the help.
EDIT: Allow me to clarify my goal, as I have been told Python does a LOT more than PHP. My goal is to begin building simple web applications into my pre-existing static XHTML pages. Obviously with PHP, you simply make sure its installed on your server and you start writing the code. I'd like to know how different Python is in that sense, and what I have to do to, say, write a basic message board in Python.
The other answers give good recommendations for what you probably want to do towards your "eventual goal", but, if you first want to persist with wsgiref.simple_server for an instructive while, you can do that too. WSGI is the crucial "glue" between web servers (not just the simple one in wsgiref of course -- real ones, too, such as Apache or Nginx [both with respective modules called mod_wsgi] as well as, for example, Google App Engine -- that one offers WSGI, too, as its fundamental API) and web applications (and frameworks that make it easier to write such applications).
Everybody's recommending various frameworks to you, but understanding WSGI can't hurt (since it will underlie whatever framework you eventually choose). And for the purpose of such understanding wsgiref.simple_server will serve you for a while longer, if you wish.
Essentially, what you want to do is write a WSGI app -- a function or class that takes two parameters (an "enviroment" dictionary, and a "start response" callable that it must call back with status and headers before returning the response's body). Your "WSGI app" can open your index.py or whatever else it wants to prep the status, headers and body it returns.
There's much more to WSGI (the middleware concept is particularly powerful), though of course you don't have to understand it very deeply -- only as deeply as you care to! See wsgi.org for tutorials &c. Gardner's two-part article, I think, is especially interesting.
Once (and if that's your choice) you understand WSGI, you can better decide whether you want it all hidden in a higher level framework such as Django (so you can focus on application-level issues instead) or use a very light and modular toolbox of WSGI utilities such as Werkzeug -- or anything in-between!-)
I would recommend Django.
"Obviously with PHP, you simply make sure its installed on your server and you start writing the code."
Not true with Python. Python is just a language, not an Apache plug-in like PHP.
Generally, you can use something like mod_wsgi to create a Python plug-in for Apache. What you find is that web page processing involves a lot of steps, none of which are part of the Python language.
You must use either extension libraries or a framework to process web requests in Python. [At this point, some PHP folks ask why Python is so popular. And the reason is because you have choices of which library or framework to use.]
PHP parses the request and allows you to embed code in the resulting page.
Python frameworks -- generally -- do not work this way. Most Python frameworks break the operation down into several steps.
Parsing the URL and locating an appropriate piece of code.
Running the code to get a result data objects.
Interpolating the resulting data objects into HTML templates.
"My goal is to begin building simple web applications into my pre-existing static XHTML pages."
Let's look at how you'd do this in Django.
Create a Django project.
Create a Django app.
Transform your XTHML pages into Django templates. Pull out the dynamic content and put in {{ somevariable }} markers. Depending on what the dynamic content is, this can be simple or rather complex.
Define URL to View function mappings in your urls.py file.
Define view functions in your views.py file. These view functions create the dynamic content that goes in the template, and which template to render.
At that point, you should be able to start the server, start a browser, pick a URL and see your template rendered.
"write a basic message board in Python."
Let's look at how you'd do this in Django.
Create a Django project.
Create a Django app.
Define your data model in models.py
Write unit tests in tests.py. Test your model's methods to be sure they all work properly.
Play with the built-in admin pages.
Create Django templates.
Define URL to View function mappings in your urls.py file.
Define view functions in your views.py file. These view functions create the dynamic content that goes in the template, and which template to render.
Take a look at CherryPy. It's a nice http framework.
It depends on what you want to achieve,
a) do you want to just write a web application without worrying too much abt what goes in the background, how request are being handled, or templates being rendered than go for a goo webframework, there are many choices simple http server is NOT one of them. e.g. use django, turbogears, webpy, cheerpy, pylons etc etc
see http://wiki.python.org/moin/WebFrameworks for full list
b) if you want to develope a simple web framework from start so that you understand internals and improve you knowledge of python, then I will suggest use simple http server
see
how can you create a URL scheme so that URLs are dispatched to correct python function,
see how can you render a html
template e.g. containing place
holder variables $title etc which
you can convert to string using
string.Template
b) would be difficult but interesting exercise to do, a) will get you started and you may be writing web apps in couple of days