Django Tutorial for Beginners - 14 - Templates Video Lecture | Django: The Ultimate Beginners Guide - Back-End Programming

all right there Hoss welcome back and in
this video we are going to be learning
how to make templates now a template is
probably exactly what you're thinking
about so if you just go online on google
and type in like shopping template or
blog template or I don't know whatever
template you're looking for basically
what they are are these generic HTML
documents with a bunch of dummy data in
it so if you're looking for like a store
template it would have like a dummy item
and I would have a heading is that says
put title here poem description here
yadda yadda tomato tomahto so the reason
that we use those templates in Django is
because it allows us to pretty much
separate our HTML from our back-end
stuff in that way you can have a web
designer and you can say alright make me
a structure for you know the home page
or the album detail view and they can
just make something generic and we can
have that in one file and then later on
we can go and fill in all the
information we want to such as put in
the actual album title where it's
supposed to be so on and so forth
so if it sounds confusing once I set it
up you guys are going to oh that
actually is a not accusing and it's very
useful so actually let me go ahead and
delete all of this HTML and code because
that's what we're trying to avoid and
all right so the first things first
anytime you want to work with templates
in Django just go ahead and write from
de Django and template import loader so
we're going to make this template a
separate file and we basically need to
load it in so load files whatever all
right now where do I want to stick this
how about under here art so I'm just
gonna make a variable for a template
whenever we load it in and that is
loader dot get template and well we
didn't even create a folder for template
is so nice of hope should probably do
that and let me just go ahead in this
video I'm going to create a template for
this home page and it's going to be the
most boring template you've ever seen
but this is where you put it
who is texting me she was calling me
from Evans Mills Evans Mills is this
crappy town next to me and there is
literally nothing there so it's kind of
scaring me right now all right
so the convention is in your apps root
directory go ahead and right click and
make a folder called templates now you
can actually change this in your
settings but this is kind of standard
convention and also another thing that
you do is you actually right-click this
and make a new subdirectory with the
same name as your app so music right in
there now in here is actually where you
put all of your HTML files so again I'm
just making this for the home page so
I'm going to name it index and do I want
to add it to get sure why not all right
so this is actually the thing that's
just going to return the HTML just like
we have been doing so let me go ahead
and make a really sweet template right
now and it's going to be really leaving
me messages huh all right so for each
album we'll just have it is a list item
instead of just having line breaks so
we'll just say list item and then of
course we need a link so href and then
your URL goes there and then the album
will say album title here alright so
this is the most boring template you've
ever see in your life but this is
basically what it is so our front end
developer or designer is going to give
us something like this hopefully it's a
little bit better unless they want to
get fired and then we have to plug in
all of the pieces so let's go back into
our view and figure out how the heck to
do that well the first thing we're going
to do is for this variable right here
we're actually going to need to load in
this template file so that is in the
music directory and index the HTML now
again the reason that we don't write
templates / music / h tml is again by
default Django is already set up to low
in a directory called templates in your
apps directory so make sure that you
have that set up correctly and now this
template variable is a reference to this
file pretty cool so the next thing we're
going to do is we're actually going to
create a dictionary so whenever we pass
this album information in to our
template we pass it through a dictionary
and most people name this context you
can actually name it anything you want
but it's kind of the standard it
basically means information that your
template needs so you can also name
these name and value pairs anything you
want but I always keep them the same is
just whatever I'm using in my Python
code makes it really easy so all albums
is just equal to all elbows there you go
so of course the rules don't change
whenever you have a view you need to
return something and that is whenever we
you know analyze everything in plug in
our data we're going to return this
finalized template so how do we write
that if you just go to template render
inside this render function go context
and always pass in your request so again
what we're going to do is we're going to
pass this information into our template
we're going to put all the pieces
exactly where we need to be and then
this is pretty much going to get
converted to final HTML that we're going
to return to the user so now what we can
do is we can hop in our template now
that everything is good to go right here
and start plugging in those pieces so
all we have to do is say ok the arm
music slash ID goes here the album title
goes here and we need to make a little
loop so it loops through each one and
just doesn't display one album so here
is the special syntax I use whenever
you're using kind of Django in an HTML
document whenever you are using kind of
think of it like Python code you use
something like this alright so you
surround your code with
squiggly bracket % % squiggly bracket so
since we're going to want to loop
through each album and what was the list
all albums we're going to write
something like this for album in all
albums and then any time you want to end
your for loop you do the same so and
just write end 4 so again all kind of I
want to say it um jingo code is going to
go in these special symbols now there's
one exception in that is whenever you're
using plain variables so for example in
this href remember the structure for
this was music slash the items ID now
this ID is actually album variable an
album attribute so that's going to need
to be a variable as well so you see a
already auto completed for me so I'll
just say album ID and that's it that's
all you need to know about working with
templates anytime you have Python code
then it goes in between these symbols
anytime you're working with variables
that you can just display as is they go
in between double squiggly either left
or right or beginning or ending whatever
you want to call it so that looks good
and also we need to have variable for
this title as well so we can just copy
this and instead of ID it is just album
title I think that was the attribute
name and alright my looking good I think
alright so now let's go ahead and
refresh our page and check it out and we
know that it works because they are no
longer just plain links before they are
now part of an unordered list and we
could see that everything worked
correctly and we can click those look
and sweet now one other thing that you
may want to do this is just kind of
bonus is before you display this list
you just want to make sure that you have
some albums to display
so maybe the user didn't add any albums
yet instead of just displaying empty
list then they're going to be like uh is
the website broken we just may want to
have a pop-up that says um no albums are
available or hey add some albums to your
list or whatever so in order to do that
we go ahead and indent this alright so
we need a if-else statement so again
these special symbols right here since
this kind of Python code and in order to
check if they have items in their albums
will just say if all albums so this is
going to be true as long as they have at
least one album so if they have albums
then we can go ahead and display this
code and now to make else statement it's
what are we um display if they don't
have any albums now just say uh you put
like heading three no or say you don't
have any albums and actually whenever
you have if-else you need to end it with
the end if and that's just so Django
knows where it's supposed to stop
analyzing so and if in there you go so
whenever we look at this since we do
have albums it should be the same but if
ever anyone was looking at this and they
didn't then they would see this little
indicator and that way they just don't
have a blank screen is like supposed to
see something here or not what's going
on
alright so there you go that is
basically how you use a template how
your front-end developer can give you
you know the core blueprint of a webpage
and you can go in and pretty much plug
in all the information that you need and
again if it's kind of overwhelming if we
do like one other one then it's going to
stick in your brain
easy peasy so thank you guys for
watching I will smell you next time