How can I refer to static variables across all of my HTML templates?

Question

I'm just learning Django and Python and want to be sure I'm doing things the right DRY way and I'm sure there's a MUCH easier way to do this...

Right now, I have the following base_template_tags.py as it's own app (added into settings.py and loaded on the HTML template {% load ... %} that allows me to access the year as an HTML tag via {% cd_year %} and/or the email address as { cd_email }. It works... but it's a hack.

Is there a better way?

from datetime import datetime
from django import template

register = template.Library()

@register.simple_tag
def current_time(format_string):
    return datetime.datetime.now().strftime(format_string)

@register.simple_tag
def cd_year():
    return datetime.now().year

@register.simple_tag
def cd_email():
    return 'pp@pp.com'

Answer 1

As you guessed, there is a much more easier way built-in to django:

{% now "Y" %}

Edit

As you mentioned in the comments that you want to share a bunch of template tags among all of your apps, you can override libraries dictionary and add your custom template tags there.

Read more about that in the docs

and for your templates:

{% load your_template_tags_file_name %}


{% cd_year %}

Edit 2

This is how the TEMPLATES part of your settings.py should look like:

TEMPLATES = [
    {
        'BACKEND': 'django.template.backends.django.DjangoTemplates',
        'DIRS': [os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'templates')]
        ,
        'APP_DIRS': True,
        'OPTIONS': {
            'context_processors': [
                'django.template.context_processors.debug',
                'django.template.context_processors.request',
                'django.contrib.auth.context_processors.auth',
                'django.contrib.messages.context_processors.messages',
            ],
            'libraries': {      # <-----------
                'global_tags': 'template_tags.global_tags',
                'admin.urls': 'django.contrib.admin.templatetags.admin_urls',
            },
        },
    },
]

and your directory structure should be like:

<your_project_dir>
├── __init__.py
├── settings.py
├── template_tags
│   ├── global_tags.py
│   ├── __init__.py
...

the global_tags.py file should contain your template tag definition and registration, as:

from datetime import datetime
from django import template

register = template.Library()

@register.simple_tag
def current_time(format_string):
    return datetime.now().strftime(format_string)

@register.simple_tag
def cd_year():
    return datetime.now().year

@register.simple_tag
def cd_email():
    return 'pp@pp.com'

and for each template that's going to use those custom template tags:

{% load global_tags %}


{% cd_year %}

Answer 2

You can used below code in .html

{% block content %}
{% load staticfiles %}
{% endblock %}

1. Create a new folder “static” in the root of the main project. Same level as the “templates” directory.

2. Add this code to your base template file (__base.html).

   {% load staticfiles %}

3. Use this to load the files.

4. Add this to your settings.py file.

   STATICFILES_DIRS = [ os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'static'), ]

Create global context: You have create App inside context_processor.py file In context_processor file written:

from app.model import *
from django.contrib.auth.models import user
def employee_processor(request):
    try:
        emp_obj= Employees.object.filter(user=request.user)
        return { ’employee’:emp_obj}
    except:
        user_obj=User.object.filter(id=request.user)
        return { ’employee’: user_obj}

Add your context processor in your setting py file:

TEMPLATES = [{
    # whatever comes before
    'OPTIONS': {
        'context_processors': [
             # whatever comes before
                   "your_app.context_processors.employee_processor",
        ],
    }
}]

Then you can used global variables in your HTML template

{{ employee }}
{{ employee.name }}