Django Tutorial for Beginners - 29 - Generic Views Video Lecture | Django: The Ultimate Beginners Guide - Back-End Programming

alright guys welcome back in this video
I want to talk to you guys about generic
views so first let me explain what they
are so basically whenever you make a
website or go to a website you're going
to notice that all the websites that you
go to kind of have the same pattern
they either display a list of objects or
they have details about one object to
different pages so if you think about a
website like YouTube whenever you search
for video it just has a list of all the
videos that you can scroll through and
find your video and then when you click
one it has details about that video
of course the player and all the
comments in related videos whatever so
what about on a website like Facebook
well on your newsfeed it has a list of
everyone's post and then you can click
either you know someone's profile or
picture or something and then it has
details about that object so again it
all comes down to two things a list of
objects in details about one single
object so I'm sure no matter what
website you think of they always have
these same patterns now on our website
that we're making right now we're kind
of doing the same thing the home page is
just a list of all of our albums and
it's going to be the cover photo and you
know the artists and stuff later on
whenever we design it properly but it's
basically a list of all of our albums
then whenever we click one there's
details about that individual item so
the album logo and all the songs tomato
tomahto
so since Django realized that people
were just creating these same patterns
over and over and over again why not
help them out and speed up the process a
little bit so just a heads up before
this tutorial I pretty much clean out
everything in the index.html and details
that HTML and I got rid of all the
favoriting form because that's not the
proper way to actually favorite songs
that was just a little example so I
pretty much stripped everything down
except you know just displaying the bare
basics like on the album name and you
know the song titles and tomatoes
so there you go just want to give you
guys a heads up so now with that being
said I'm actually going to go ahead and
delete this so just go ahead and delete
everything to do with favorites and
actually let me go ahead and delete
everything inside views and I know you
guys are like scream like oh my god what
are you doing we spent like 20 tutorials
learning about those everything I
learned is deleted guys I promise like I
said you guys are going to love me after
this so instead of the way we've been
making views before which were basically
functions what we're going to do now is
we're going to make something called a
generic views so from Jango dot views
import generic now we also need to
import albums so from models import
album art so in this is Errol I'm just
going to make two generic views oh sorry
got black long alright so the first one
is just going to be a list generic view
which is going to list all of our albums
and the second one is going to be a
detail generic view which is going to
give us details about that individual
album so it's going to be the exact same
as before to the user but we're going to
write a lot less code so how do we make
a generic view well instead of functions
we actually use classes so for the home
page since it's the next page I'm just
going to say index view now the type of
view we use we actually inherit it so
there are a couple different types of
course in this tutorial I'm going to be
teaching you guys about the list generic
view and also the detail generic view
but remember on the index page is just a
list of all of our albums so we're
actually going to inherit from generic
list view alright so what we need to do
now is the first thing we need to
specify is what template we're using so
over in templates index.html of course
we're using index the HTML to display
the albums so I'm just going to go ahead
and write template name
and set this equal to music / index.html
so that just says whenever we get a list
of all of the albums
plug them into this template right here
pretty easy now there's only one other
thing that we need to make in here and
that is a query set function so
basically we're going to say we're going
to make a function called get query set
and all this is going to do is we're
going to query the database for whatever
albums we want and in this example we'll
just go ahead and get all of them so
returned album objects all and guys you
know what this is actually it this is
all you need to do for this generic view
now before I run this I actually need to
complete the rest of this code so that's
all we need to do for the home page and
let's go ahead and make the details view
now so detail view and again whenever
you look at the details of an album it's
not a list of things it's just details
about one object so the generic view for
this is generic where is it detailed
view right there and this is even easier
so since you're not actually getting a
list of objects all you need to say is
okay first of all what model or what
type of object are you trying to get the
detail of and we'll just say the model
equals album trying to look at the
details for an album and the last thing
is the template name just like this so
whenever you give me that album what
template do you want me to plug it into
and that's just the detail view or
detail template right there so detail
the HTML now the only other thing or the
only other file we have to change is
this URLs right here now of course I
just want to delete this first of all
since we're not even using that anymore
the favorite so not a whole lot is going
to change in this file but a couple
things I want to point out that are very
important is this you know how I said
that each URL pattern has to be hooked
up to
view function well right now we're using
these classes I mean this class doesn't
even have any functions or methods
inside it so what we need to do is
instead of these functions we actually
need to reference on the class and then
convert it to a view so you just review
for each one and then you write the
class name which is index view and then
since you actually need a function you
just call as view so we're pretty much
saying hey we're using a class but since
you need to view just go ahead and treat
it as a view so we're going to do the
same thing right here so the class of
this was detail view and of course as
view now the last thing I want to point
out is whenever you're using a detail
view it actually expects the primary key
so we're pretty much going to give it
the primary key of one if we want the
Taylor Swift album or two if we want the
myth album so instead of album ID here
I'm just going PK for primary key and
that's it so now check this out
hopefully one of your refresh we should
see huh you see I thought we're supposed
to get a list of albums right here but
we got nothing and the reason for that
is the last piece of the puzzle you see
whenever you query all of the albums
right here it's pretty much going to
return a list of all of your album
objects but it returned it but it didn't
know what variable to store it in so we
could use it in our template how did it
know that it was supposed to be called
all albums well by default whenever you
use a ListView it's going to go ahead
and query this and it's going to return
it in an object called object list so if
you just want to name it object list and
check it out refresh this and boom
roasted everything looks fine now one
other thing that you can do is if you
actually made this and then you gave it
to your web designer and he was like and
I hate this name object list why can't
you just name it album list that's so
much more intuitive like shut
you can actually do that if you want so
again the default name whenever you
return a list of objects from the
ListView generic function is going to be
called object list but if you ever want
to override it then you just have to do
this make a variable called context
object name and again by default what's
happening is it's essentially equal to
this object list but you can change it
to anything you want like all albums and
now you're a list of albums you can just
refer to as all albums just like that so
refresh and everything is good to go so
again one last time there were a bunch
of patterns that people were using over
and over again whenever they're making
websites mainly displaying a list of
objects and displaying the details for a
single object so instead of having to
write all those functions like you
always do instead what you can do is use
these generic views so it's a lot
cleaner and check it out we now made to
entire web pages and look how cleaner
this is than just using view functions
so thank you guys for watching and we're
going to subscribe I will see you guys
next time