In this part of the tutorial you are going to create the core of the bookstore application, with all the pages that gives access to the CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) features. And you are goint to plugin this basic application into Pinax.

After finishing with this part you will have the core of the bookstore application working as desired. You will be able to:

see a list with all the books in the bookstore
add a new book
update and delete your books
see a list of all books added by you
see a list of all books added by a user

In the following parts you will add some more goodness like localization, pagination, avatars, profiles, voting, tagging, feeds, comments, notifications, and flags for contents, but basically this part is the most important one and it is the way you can create from scratch an application and make it enabled for Pinax.

Creating the application

Before doing anything, give execute permissions to the manage.py command:

chmod 777 manage.py

Now create the bookstore application:

./manage.py startapp bookstore

Now that you have created the application, it it time to add the models, installing it in the Pinax project and syncing the database.

Creating the models

For creating the models you need to edit the models.py that has been created for you when creating the application.
Our application will be composed by a single model, named Book.

PROJECT_ROOT/bookstore/models.py

# python
import os
from os import path
from datetime import datetime
 
# django imports
from django.conf import settings
from django.db import models
from django.contrib.auth.models import User
from django.utils.translation import ugettext_lazy as _
 
class Book(models.Model):
    """
    Book Model: title, publisher, author, description, coverart, adder, added
    """
    title = models.CharField(_('title'), max_length=255)
    publisher = models.CharField(_('publisher'), max_length=255)
    author = models.CharField(_('author'), max_length=255)
    description = models.TextField(_('description'), blank=True)
    coverart = models.ImageField(upload_to="bookstore", blank=True, null=True)
 
    adder = models.ForeignKey(User, related_name="added_books", verbose_name=_('adder'))
    added = models.DateTimeField(_('added'), default=datetime.now)
 
    def get_absolute_url(self):
        return ("describe_book", [self.pk])
    get_absolute_url = models.permalink(get_absolute_url)
 
    def __unicode__(self):
        return self.title
 
    class Meta:
        ordering = ('-added', )
 
    def _get_thumb_url(self, folder, size):
        """ get a thumbnail giver a folder and a size. """
        if not self.coverart:
            return '#'
        upload_to = path.dirname(self.coverart.path)
        tiny = path.join(upload_to, folder, path.basename(self.coverart.path))
        tiny = path.normpath(tiny)
        if not path.exists(tiny):
            import Image
            im = Image.open(self.coverart.path)
            im.thumbnail(size, Image.ANTIALIAS)
            im.save(tiny, 'JPEG')
        return path.join(path.dirname(self.coverart.url), folder, path.basename(self.coverart.path)).replace('\', '/')
 
    def get_thumb_url(self):
        return self._get_thumb_url('thumb_100_100', (100,100))
 
    def thumb(self):
        """ Get thumb <a>. """
        link = self.get_thumb_url()
        if link is None:
            return '<a href="#" target="_blank">NO IMAGE</a>'
        else:
            return '<img src=%s />' % (link)
    thumb.allow_tags = True
 
    def fullpicture(self):
        """ Get full picture <a>. """
        link = "%s%s" % (settings.MEDIA_URL, self.coverart)
        if link is None:
            return '<a href="#" target="_blank">NO IMAGE</a>'
        else:
            return '<img src=%s />' % (link)
    thumb.allow_tags = True

A few notes about the Book’s model:

The basic application of the tutorial implements these fields: title, publisher, author, description, coverart, adder, added
Also an identifier field, named id, will be created by Django behind the scenes
The adder field is a foreign key to the user table. This is why you need to import User from django.contrib.auth.models
The default ordering will be based on the time each book has been added, from the newest to the oldest
The thumb method returns the url of the thumbnail of the coverart
The fullpicture method returns the url of the coverart

If you wish that the bookstore application may be managed also from the Django Admin application (this is mainly useful for letting the system administrator to interact with the system), create an admin.py file like this one:

PROJECT_ROOT/bookstore/admin.py

from django.contrib import admin
from bookstore.models import Book
 
class BookAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    list_display = ('title', 'publisher', 'description', 'added', 'adder', 'coverart')
 
admin.site.register(Book, BookAdmin)

A note about localization

One of the aims of this tutorial is also to make the developer confident with the powerful Django’s localization features.
One of the part of the tutorial will teach you how to develop a localization-ready application.

Meanwhile just be aware that we will make the strings of the application easily translatable by using two mechanism:

in the models (as you may have noticed) you will use the ugettext_lazy class from django.utils.translation
in the templates you will use the {% blocktrans %} block

Installing the application in the Pinax project

Add the Bookstore application in the settings.py file.
Do the same with the Admin application if you want to manage the bookstore application also from there:

PROJECT_ROOT/settings.py

INSTALLED_APPS = (
    # included
    'django.contrib.auth',
    'django.contrib.contenttypes',
    ...
 
    # external
    'notification', # must be first
    'django_openid',
    'emailconfirmation',
    ...
 
    # internal (for now)
    'analytics',
    'profiles',
    'account',
    ...
 
    'django.contrib.admin', # add this line
 
    # my apps
    'bookstore', # also add this line
)

Syncronizing the database

Now that you created a new model, you need to syncronize the database:

./manage.py syncdb

Note that only a new table is generated, and its named bookstore_book. This is the SQL that has been ran by syncdb:

CREATE TABLE "bookstore_book" (
    "id" integer NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY,
    "title" varchar(255) NOT NULL,
    "publisher" varchar(255) NOT NULL,
    "author" varchar(255) NOT NULL,
    "description" text NOT NULL,
    "coverart" varchar(100),
    "adder_id" integer NOT NULL REFERENCES "auth_user" ("id"),
    "added" datetime NOT NULL
)

Consider that I am using Sqlite, if you are using a different database like Postgres, MySql… the SQL may be slightly different.

Time to run the server and test your new application:

./manage.py runserver

Now if you access the admin interface, at: http://localhost:8000/admin you will be able to manage your bookstore with basic CRUD pages.

The Admin is enabled to manage the bookstore application

To integrate this CRUD pages into Pinax, you are going to write the views of these pages in the next sections, so keep going with the tutorial.

Configuring the urls

Configuring the urls means to design how to map urls to pages.
Any web developers with good habits should plan the pages composing the application that is developing, and mapping them to corresponding urls.

For the Bookstore application this is what is planned to be:

A page (the home page of the bookstore application) for getting a list of all books: http://localhost:8000/bookstore/
A page for getting a list of your books: http://localhost:8000/bookstore/your_books/
A page for getting a list of the books added by a different users: http://localhost:8000/bookstore/user_books/an_user/
A page for adding a book: http://localhost:8000/bookstore/add/
A page for viewing a book, given its identifier: http://localhost:8000/bookstore/4/book/ (it this case the book with id=4)
A page for updating a book, given its identifier: http://localhost:8000/bookstore/4/update/ (it this case the book with id=4)

Now that we planned the urls needed by the bookstore application, you add the mappings to the views in the urls.py file.
Instead than adding these mappings to the central urls.py file of the project, for clearity you create a urls.py file in the bookstore application directory.
Now you need to include this directory in the project urls.py file.

This is where to add the file in the urls.py project file:

PROJECT_ROOT/urls.py

urlpatterns = patterns('',
 
    ...
 
    (r'^feeds/tweets/(.*)/$', 'django.contrib.syndication.views.feed', tweets_feed_dict),
    (r'^feeds/posts/(.*)/$', 'django.contrib.syndication.views.feed', blogs_feed_dict),
    (r'^feeds/bookmarks/(.*)/?$', 'django.contrib.syndication.views.feed', bookmarks_feed_dict),
 
    # bookstore urls.py file
    (r'^bookstore/', include('bookstore.urls')),
 
)

and this is the urls.py file you need to create in the application directory that translate to django the mappings we have planned before:

PROJECT_ROOT/bookstore/urls.py

#from django
from django.conf.urls.defaults import *
 
# from bookstore
from bookstore.models import Book
 
urlpatterns = patterns('',
        url(r'^$', 'bookstore.views.books', name="all_books"),
        url(r'^(d+)/book/$', 'bookstore.views.book', name="describe_book"),
        url(r'^your_books/$', 'bookstore.views.your_books', name="your_books"),
        url(r'^user_books/(?P<username>w+)/$', 'bookstore.views.user_books', name="user_books"),
        # CRUD urls
        url(r'^add/$', 'bookstore.views.add_book', name="add_book"),
        url(r'^(d+)/update/$', 'bookstore.views.update_book', name="update_book"),
        url(r'^(d+)/delete/$', 'bookstore.views.delete_book', name="delete_book"),
    )

A few notes about the urls:

each url maps a uri (in a regular expression form) to a Django view. For example in the case of the url named your_books the request made to Django will be managed by a view named your_books
note that in some case there is a parameter (an integer or a string) in the regular expression: that is for the identifier of a book or for the name of the user. These parameters are passed to the view

Writing the views

Now that you have planned all the views composing the application, it is time to actually write them!

PROJECT_ROOT/bookstore/views.py

#from django
from django.shortcuts import render_to_response, get_object_or_404
from django.template import RequestContext
from django.contrib.auth.decorators import login_required
from django.http import HttpResponseRedirect
from django.core.urlresolvers import reverse
from django.utils.translation import ugettext_lazy as _
from django.contrib.auth.models import User
 
#from bookstore
from bookstore.models import Book
from bookstore.forms import BookForm
 
def books(request):
    """ Return the all books list, ordered by added date. """
    books = Book.objects.all().order_by("-added")
    return render_to_response("bookstore/books.html", {
        "books": books,
        "list": 'all',
    }, context_instance=RequestContext(request))
 
def user_books(request, username):
    """ Return an user books list. """
    user = get_object_or_404(User, username=username)
    userbooks = Book.objects.filter(adder=user).order_by("-added")
    return render_to_response("bookstore/books.html", {
        "books": userbooks,
        "list": 'user',
        "username": username,
    }, context_instance=RequestContext(request))
 
def book(request, book_id):
    """ Return a book given its id. """
    isyours = False
    book = Book.objects.get(id=book_id)
    if request.user == book.adder:
        isyours = True
    return render_to_response("bookstore/book.html", {
        "book": book,
        "isyours": isyours,
    }, context_instance=RequestContext(request))
 
@login_required
def your_books(request):
    """ Return the logged user books list. """
    yourbooks = Book.objects.filter(adder=request.user).order_by("-added")
    return render_to_response("bookstore/books.html", {
        "books": yourbooks,
        "list": 'yours',
    }, context_instance=RequestContext(request))
 
@login_required
def add_book(request):
    """ Add a book to the bookstore. """
    # POST request
    if request.method == "POST":
        book_form = BookForm(request.POST, request.FILES)
        if book_form.is_valid():
            # from ipdb import set_trace; set_trace()
            new_book = book_form.save(commit=False)
            new_book.adder = request.user
            new_book.save()
            request.user.message_set.create(message=_("You have saved book '%(title)s'") %  {'title': new_book.title})
            return HttpResponseRedirect(reverse("bookstore.views.books"))
    # GET request
    else:
        book_form = BookForm()
        return render_to_response("bookstore/add.html", {
            "book_form": book_form,
            }, context_instance=RequestContext(request))
    # generic case
    return render_to_response("bookstore/add.html", {
        "book_form": book_form,
    }, context_instance=RequestContext(request))
 
@login_required
def update_book(request, book_id):
    """ Update a book given its id. """
    book = Book.objects.get(id=book_id)
    if request.method == "POST":
        book_form = BookForm(request.POST, request.FILES, instance=book)
        book_form.is_update = True
        if request.user == book.adder:
            #from ipdb import set_trace; set_trace()
            if book_form.is_valid():
                book_form.save()
                request.user.message_set.create(message=_("You have updated book '%(title)s'") %  {'title': book.title})
                return HttpResponseRedirect(reverse("bookstore.views.books"))
    else:
        book_form = BookForm(instance=book)
        return render_to_response("bookstore/update.html", {
            "book_form": book_form,
            "book": book,
            }, context_instance=RequestContext(request))
 
@login_required
def delete_book(request, book_id):
    """ Delete a book given its id. """
    book = get_object_or_404(Book, id=book_id)
    if request.user == book.adder:
        book.delete()
        request.user.message_set.create(message="Book Deleted")
 
    return HttpResponseRedirect(reverse("bookstore.views.books"))

Some notes on the views.py file you just created:

some of the views can be accessed without authenticating to the system: books, user_books, book
some of the views need authentication to the system: your_books, add_book, update_book, delete_book. In this case you need to use the @login_required decorator
some of the views have additional input parameter to the request. For example add_book, update_book, delete_book need a book_id parameter to know which book to process
all of the views define a response defined by a template and some variable that the template must process. For example the user_books renders the response with the books.html template and these variables processed by the response: books, list, username

Note that you also need to create a forms.py file and to add the BookForm that is used from the add_book and update_book views:

PROJECT_ROOT/bookstore/forms.py

#from django
from django import forms
from django.utils.translation import ugettext_lazy as _
 
#from bookstore
from bookstore.models import Book
 
class BookForm(forms.ModelForm):
    """
    Book Form: form associated to the Book model
    """
 
    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
        super(BookForm, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)
        self.is_update = False
 
    def clean(self):
        """ Do validation stuff. """
        # title is mandatory
        if 'title' not in self.cleaned_data:
            return
        # if a book with that title already exists...
        if not self.is_update:
            if Book.objects.filter(title=self.cleaned_data['title']).count() > 0:
                raise forms.ValidationError(_("There is already this book in the library."))
        return self.cleaned_data
 
    class Meta:
        model = Book
        fields = ('coverart', 'publisher', 'author', 'description', 'title', 'tags')

Here the form is generated by the model (DRY, Don’t Repeat Yourself!). Note that the clean method implements some validation stuff. At this time we do not want a book to be created (or updated) if:

title is empty
there is already a book with that title

It is now time to write the application templates, but before doing so let’s fix the way the Bookstore application css and images are managed.
Also, before writing the templates, it is finally time to plugin the Bookstore application into Pinax!

Bookstore css and images

Create a bookstore directory in the PROJECT_ROOT/media directory.
Inside the bookstore directory create a css directory and an img directory.
Create a bookstore.css file in the css directory like this one:

PROJECT_ROOT/media/bookstore/css/bookstore.css

/* BOOKSTORE */
 
table.narrow {
    width: 500px;
}
table.bookstore td {
    vertical-align: top;
    padding: 5px;
}
table.bookstore td h2 {
    margin: 0;
    padding: 0;
}
table.bookstore td.vote {
    width: 80px;
    text-align: center;
    vertical-align: middle;
}
.bookstore .even {
    background-color: #FAFAFA;
}
.bookstore .odd {
    background-color: #F3F3F3;
}
div.url {
    color: #666;
    font-size: 90%;
    font-style: italic;
}

Plugging the bookstore application into Pinax

To to so, you just need to modify site_base.html to include the the bookstore.css and the bookstore application (you just need to add two lines):

PROJECT_ROOT/templates/site_base.html:

{% block extra_head_base %}
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="{{ STATIC_URL }}css/site_tabs.css" />
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="{{ STATIC_URL }}pinax/css/avatar.css" />
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="{{ STATIC_URL }}pinax/css/blogs.css" />
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="{{ STATIC_URL }}pinax/css/comments.css" />
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="{{ STATIC_URL }}pinax/css/friends.css" />
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="{{ STATIC_URL }}pinax/css/groups.css" />
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="{{ STATIC_URL }}pinax/css/locations.css" />
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="{{ STATIC_URL }}pinax/css/messages.css" />
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="{{ STATIC_URL }}pinax/css/microblogging.css" />
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="{{ STATIC_URL }}pinax/css/pagination.css" />
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="{{ STATIC_URL }}pinax/css/photos.css" />
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="{{ STATIC_URL }}pinax/css/tabs.css" />
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="{{ STATIC_URL }}pinax/css/topics.css" />
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="{{ STATIC_URL }}pinax/css/wiki.css" />
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="{{ STATIC_URL }}pinax/css/jquery.autocomplete.css" />
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="{{ STATIC_URL }}bookmarks/css/bookmarks.css" />
    <!-- here you insert the boookstore css-->
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="{{ STATIC_URL }}bookstore/css/bookstore.css" />
    <!-- end -->
    {% block extra_head %}{% endblock %}
{% endblock %}
....
{% block right_tabs %}
    {% if user.is_authenticated %}
        <ul class="tabs">{% spaceless %}
            <li id="tab_profile"><a href="{% url profile_detail user %}">{% trans "Profile" %}</a></li>
            <li id="tab_photos"><a href="{% url photos %}">{% trans "Photos" %}</a></li>
            <li id="tab_blogs"><a href="{% url blog_list_all %}">{% trans "Blogs" %}</a></li>
            <li id="tab_tribes"><a href="{% url tribe_list %}">{% trans "Tribes" %}</a></li>
            <li id="tab_tweets"><a href="{% url tweets_you_follow %}">{% trans "Tweets" %}</a></li>
            <li id="tab_bookmarks"><a href="{% url all_bookmarks %}">{% trans "Bookmarks" %}</a></li>
            <!-- here you insert the boookstore tab-->
            <li id="tab_bookstore"><a href="{% url all_books %}">{% trans "Bookstore" %}</a></li>
            <!-- end -->
            <li id="tab_swaps"><a href="{% url offer_list_all %}">{% trans "Swaps" %}</a></li>
            <li id="tab_locations"><a href="{% url loc_yours %}">{% trans "Locations" %}</a></li>
            <li id="tab_inbox"><a href="{% url messages_inbox %}">{% trans "Inbox" %} ({{ combined_inbox_count }})</a></li>
        {% endspaceless %}</ul>
    {% endif %}
{% endblock %}

Writing the templates

Writing the base template

First you create a base template for the Bookstore application. This base template will be extend by all the Bookstore application templates.

PROJECT_ROOT/templates/bookstore/base.html:

{% extends "site_base.html" %}
 
{% load i18n %}
 
{% block rtab_id %}id="bookstore_tab"{% endblock %}
 
{% block subnav %}
    <ul>
        <li><a href="{% url all_books %}">{% trans "All books" %}</a></li>
        <li><a href="{% url your_books %}">{% trans "Your books" %}</a></li>
        <li><a href="{% url add_book %}">{% trans "Add a book" %}</a></li>
    </ul>
{% endblock %}

Note that this base template extends the site_base.html template you have edited a while ago.
As you can easily deduct, the Bookstore application will have 3 sub menus: “All books”, “Your books” and “Add a book”.

Creating a template for listing the books

This is the template that the application will use to render the books, your_books and user_books views.
Before writing any template, you need to create the directory that will actually contain them: create a bookstore directory in the templates directory of the project.
Also you need to create a PROJECT_ROOT/site_media/media/bookstore/thumb_100_100 directory to manage thumbnails, according to the way the get_thumb_url method is written (you could make things easily customisable with a variable in settings.py).

Now it is time to create the books.html, the template for listing the books:

PROJECT_ROOT/templates/bookstore/books.html template

{% extends "bookstore/base.html" %}
 
{% load i18n %}
 
{% block head_title %}{% blocktrans %}Library{% endblocktrans %}{% endblock %}
 
{% block body %}
 
    <h1>
        {% ifequal list 'all' %}
            {% trans "All Books" %}
        {% endifequal %}
        {% ifequal list 'user' %}
            {{ username }} {% trans "books" %}
        {% endifequal %}
        {% ifequal list 'yours' %}
            {% trans "Your Books" %}
        {% endifequal %}
    </h1>
 
    <!-- alternate -->
    {% if books %}
 
        <table class="bookstore">
            {% for book in books %}
                <tr class="{% cycle odd,even %}">
                    <!-- meta -->
                    <td class="meta" >
                        <div class="details">{% blocktrans %}added by{% endblocktrans %} <a href="{% url profile_detail book.adder.username %}">{{ book.adder }}</a></div>
                        {% blocktrans %}on{% endblocktrans %} {{ book.added|date }}
                        <a href="/bookstore/user_books/{{ book.adder.username }}"><i>{% blocktrans %}View all books added by {% endblocktrans %}{{ book.adder }}</i></a>
                    </td>
                    <!-- book info -->
                    <td>
                        <h3><a href="/bookstore/{{ book.id }}/book/">{{ book.title }}</a></h2>
                        <div class="body">
                            <strong><i>{{ book.publisher }}<br />{{ book.author }}<br /></strong></i>
                            {{ book.description|linebreaks|truncatewords:50 }}
                        </div>
                        {% ifequal list 'yours' %}
                            <table>
                                <tr>
                                    <td>
                                        <!-- udpate book -->
                                        <form method="GET" action="{% url update_book book.id %}">
                                            <input type="submit" value="{% trans "Update Book" %}" />
                                        </form>
                                    </td>
                                    <td>
                                        <!-- delete book -->
                                        <form method="POST" action="{% url delete_book book.id %}">
                                            <input type="submit" value="{% trans "Delete Book" %}" />
                                        </form>
                                    </td>
                                </tr>
                            </table>
                        {% endifequal %}
                    </td>
                    <!-- cover art -->
                    <td>
                        <div class="coverart" >{{ book.thumb|safe }}</div>
                    </td>
                </tr>
            {% endfor %}
        </table>
 
 
    {% else %}
        <p>{% trans "No books yet." %}</p>
    {% endif %}
 
{% endblock %}

Notes about this template:

the ‘list’ variable is used to define the title of the page (”All books”, “Your books”, “An user books”)
the ‘books’ collection is iterated to create a table with a row for each book (the collection may be related to the whole book set, to your book set or to a user book set
each row contains the following sections (one for each column): meta, book info and coverart
the meta section displays the user that added the book (with a link to her/his profile), the date when the book has been added and a link to the full book list added by that user
the book info section displays the book’s title with a link to its page, the publisher, the author and the description (truncated after 50 characters). If the template is rendering the your_books view (thus if ‘list’ == ‘Your books’), a link for updating/deleting that book is displayed
if the books collection is empty the table is not created an the user is warned with a “No books yet.” message

Creating a template for viewing a book

This is maybe the easiest of the templates you need to create.
Create the book.html template using the following code:

PROJECT_ROOT/templates/bookstore/book.html template

{% extends "bookstore/base.html" %}
 
{% load i18n %}
{% load uni_form %}
 
{% block head_title %}{% blocktrans %}Book Description{% endblocktrans %}{% endblock %}
 
{% block body %}
    <h1>{{ book.title }}</h1>
        <p>
             <div class="coverart" >{{ book.fullpicture|safe }}</div>
        </p>
        <p>
            <!-- book info -->
            <h3>{{ book.title }}</h2>
            <div class="body">
                <strong><i>{{ book.publisher }}<br />{{ book.author }}<br /></strong></i>
                            {{ book.description|linebreaks }}
            </div>
        </p>
        <p>
            <!-- book action -->
            {% if isyours %}
                <table>
                    <tr>
                        <td>
                            <!-- udpate book -->
                            <form method="GET" action="{% url update_book book.id %}">
                                <input type="submit" value="{% trans "Update Book" %}" />
                            </form>
                        </td>
                        <td>
                            <!-- delete book -->
                            <form method="POST" action="{% url delete_book book.id %}">
                                <input type="submit" value="{% trans "Delete Book" %}" />
                            </form>
                        </td>
                    </tr>
                </table>
            {% endif %}
        </p>
        <p class="meta">
            <!-- meta -->
            <div class="details">{% blocktrans %}added by{% endblocktrans %} <a href="{% url profile_detail book.adder.username %}">{{ book.adder }}</a></div>{% blocktrans %}on{% endblocktrans %} {{ book.added|date }}
        </p>
 
{% endblock %}

It is a bit like the books.html template, but here Django is rendering only one book. You may note that:

the variable book is used to gain information about the book to render
the variable isyours is needed to let the user to update or delete the book if she/he is the user who has added it
there are 3 sections in the book representation: book info, book action, meta
book info displays the book’s cover art, title, publisher, author and description
book action displays the buttons to update or delete the book if the user is the one who has added it in the system
meta displays the user that added the book (with a link to his/her profile) and the date when the book has been added

Creating a template for adding a book

Now create the add.html template, for adding new books to the library:

PROJECT_ROOT/templates/bookstore/add.html template

{% extends "bookstore/base.html" %}
 
{% load i18n %}
{% load uni_form %}
 
{% block head_title %}{% blocktrans %}Add Book{% endblocktrans %}{% endblock %}
 
{% block body %}
    <h1>{% trans "Add Book" %}</h1>
 
    <form enctype="multipart/form-data" method="POST" action="" class="uniForm">
        <fieldset class="inlineLabels">
            {{ book_form|as_uni_form }}
            <div class="form_block">
                <input type="submit" value="{% trans 'add book' %}">
            </div>
        </fieldset>
    </form>
{% endblock %}

Here there is nothing much to explain, you are rendering the template with a BookForm variable.

Creating a template for updating an existing book

Time to create the update template, for updating a book in the library:

PROJECT_ROOT/templates/bookstore/update.html template

{% extends "bookstore/base.html" %}
 
{% load i18n %}
{% load uni_form %}
 
{% block head_title %}{% blocktrans %}Add Book{% endblocktrans %}{% endblock %}
 
{% block body %}
    <h1>{% trans "Update Book: " %}{{ book.title }}</h1>
        <form enctype="multipart/form-data" method="POST" action="" class="uniForm">
            <p align='center'>{{ book.fullpicture|safe }}</p>
            <fieldset class="inlineLabels">
                {{ book_form|as_uni_form }}
                <div class="form_block">
                    <input type="submit" value="{% trans 'update book' %}">
                </div>
            </fieldset>
        </form>
{% endblock %}

Basically this template is like the add.html ones, with another variable - the book - coming from the view.

A quick tour of the basic bookstore application

Now that you are over writing the models, the view and the templates of the application, you may finally test if everything is working properly.

If you still didn’t do so, start the development server and try visiting the pages and access the features you have implemented.

1. Visit the Pinax home page: http://localhost:8000

The Pinax Home Page

2. Visit the Bookstore all books page: http://localhost:8000/bookstore/

The Bookstore all books page

3. Consult your books: http://localhost:8000/bookstore/your_books/

The Bookstore your books page

4. Consult the books added by a different users: http://localhost:8000/bookstore/user_books/admin/

The Bookstore user books page

5. Add a book: http://localhost:8000/bookstore/add/

The Bookstore add book page

6. View a book: http://localhost:8000/bookstore/4/book/

The Bookstore view a book page

7. Update a book added by you: http://localhost:8000/bookstore/4/update/

The Bookstore update a book page

What’s next

Now that you are ready with the basic bookstore application, you may read the next tutorial parts (as soon as they will appear at this blog) in order to implement other features like localization, pagination, avatars, profiles, voting, tagging, feeds, comments, notifications, and flags for contents.

Where can I get the code?

The whole tutorial is at gitHub: http://github.com/capooti/pinaxtutorial
There you can download tutorial’s code, and the tutorial text in restructured text format (Sphinx ready).

Share and Enjoy:

Fritz says:

November 30, 2009 at 4:24 pm

Wow, that is quite extensive!
Thank you so much.

I was wondering if you might have an idea if this would run easily on google app engine, from doing some reading it seems it would have to. Do you have any ideas on this?

Paolo says:

November 30, 2009 at 7:25 pm

Fritz,
as far as I know the Pinax developers will start evaluating the possibility to run Pinax on GAE as soon as Django for non relational database will be released (and so Django will be able to run on GAE)
Refer to this:
http://groups.google.com/group/pinax-users/browse_thread/thread/b67be1fb3d1dfd68/13835507d705c56a?lnk=gst&q=google+app+engine#13835507d705c56a
and to this:
http://groups.google.com/group/django-developers/browse_thread/thread/fcf501d073ae33f
Of course the same concept is valid for other non relational DB like Amazon SimpleDb, MongoDb, CouchDb and Apache Cassandra.

Tim Lee says:

December 2, 2009 at 1:26 am

Great Post! Thanks!

Looking forwards to the sequel

Grant says:

December 5, 2009 at 10:24 am

Great post! Looking I’m looking forward also to seeing the integration with localization. I’m trying to get my head around it right now, so I think it will be helpful.

Tiberiu Ichim says:

December 15, 2009 at 7:40 pm

I’m trying to adapt this application to a Pinax site I’m doing, and I’ve noticed some problems with the code on github. First, some of the URLs are hardcoded into the templates (the /bookstore/ prefix), and some of the blocktrans tags display some of the problems that I’ve explained here: http://play.pixelblaster.ro/blog/archive/2009/11/30/a-dont-do-for-internationalizing-django-templates
(basically, don’t split phrases into separate entities, keep them together because the translation might need to switch the position of entities).

December 15, 2009 at 7:41 pm

Also, good job!

Sanya says:

December 23, 2009 at 3:37 am

Hi. First of all I’d like to thank you for your efforts. This tutorial
is really very helpful.

And I also would like to point out some typos I have noticed
1) in file models.py:

return path.join(path.dirname(self.coverart.url), folder, path.basename(self.coverart.path)).replace(’\', ‘/’)
should be replaced with
return path.join(path.dirname(self.coverart.url), folder, path.basename(self.coverart.path)).replace(’\\’, ‘/’)

and the second occurrence of
thumb.allow_tags = True
should be replace with
fullpicture.allow_tags = True

2) in file bookstore/urls.py:
url(r’^(d+)/book/$’, ‘bookstore.views.book’, name=”describe_book”),
should be replaced with
url(r’^(\d+)/book/$’, ‘bookstore.views.book’, name=”describe_book”),

url(r’^user_books/(?Pw+)/$’, ‘bookstore.views.user_books’, name=”user_books”),
should be replaced with
url(r’^user_books/(?P\w+)/$’, ‘bookstore.views.user_books’, name=”user_books”),

url(r’^(d+)/update/$’, ‘bookstore.views.update_book’, name=”update_book”),
should be replaced with
url(r’^(\d+)/update/$’, ‘bookstore.views.update_book’, name=”update_book”),

url(r’^(d+)/delete/$’, ‘bookstore.views.delete_book’, name=”delete_book”),
should be replaced with
url(r’^(\d+)/delete/$’, ‘bookstore.views.delete_book’, name=”delete_book”),

December 24, 2009 at 6:51 pm

Also in forms.py ‘tags’ should be removed from fields tuple since Book model does not have such field yet.

Paolo Corti says:

December 24, 2009 at 7:03 pm

you are right, thanks

Thinking in GIS

a blog about GIS, CMS, agile development and design patterns

The Pinax Tutorial #2: Developing the basic application and plugging it in Pinax

Creating the application

Creating the models

A note about localization

Installing the application in the Pinax project

Syncronizing the database

Configuring the urls

Writing the views

Bookstore css and images

Plugging the bookstore application into Pinax

Writing the templates

Writing the base template

Creating a template for listing the books

Creating a template for viewing a book

Creating a template for adding a book

Creating a template for updating an existing book

A quick tour of the basic bookstore application

What’s next

Where can I get the code?

9 Comments on The Pinax Tutorial #2: Developing the basic application and plugging it in Pinax

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Thinking in GIS

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Thinking in GIS

a blog about GIS, CMS, agile development and design patterns

The Pinax Tutorial #2: Developing the basic application and plugging it in Pinax

Creating the application

Creating the models

A note about localization

Installing the application in the Pinax project

Syncronizing the database

Configuring the urls

Writing the views

Bookstore css and images

Plugging the bookstore application into Pinax

Writing the templates

Writing the base template

Creating a template for listing the books

Creating a template for viewing a book

Creating a template for adding a book

Creating a template for updating an existing book

A quick tour of the basic bookstore application

What’s next

Where can I get the code?

9 Comments on The Pinax Tutorial #2: Developing the basic application and plugging it in Pinax

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Thinking in GIS

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