How can I put a block of dynamically generated content into a django template?

Question

I want to include things like twitter status, or delicious tags, in my django templates.

These things are dynamic, yet regular. How would this be done?

Answer 1

The simplest approach is to use {{ mycontent }} in your template (where you want the dynamically generated content to appear) and put the correspondence between mycontent and its value in the context you use to render the template -- i.e., the most fundamental part of django's templating.

If what you mean is that you want Ajax support whereby Javascript on the page continuously refreshes such content according to what the server wants it to be at any given time, I suggest looking into dojango, the Dojo/Django integration project -- it's not yet as fully mature as each of Dojo and Django are on their own (not version 0.4 yet), but it is already usable and useful.

Answer 2

A common technique is to leave a placeholder div in the generated content, then fill the div in on the client side via an AJAX call from Javascript that you include in the page.

That gives you the benefit of having a cacheable (fast loading) primary page, with separate dynamic bits. Depending on how live you want the dynamic bits, you can can even cache them for shorter durations.

Answer 3

There are a number of ways to handle this, so you can choose a method that best matches your own personal style or requirements:

1. Template context variable: as answered by Alex you can put your content into a context variable that is included in the context of every template created by every view. Django even provides a mechanism for doing this automatically, called a context processor. Pros: very straightforward. Cons: won't dynamically refresh new content on client browsers.

2. AJAX dynamic loading: as mentioned by Alex and Dave you can dynamically load your content using AJAX methods. As an example using jQuery, you would put a placeholder in your template something like <div id="twitterfeed"></div> and then in a javascript block in your template put $("#twitterfeed").load("{% url twitterfeed %}"); where twitterfeed is a url so named in your urls.py. Pros: will dynamically update browsers. Cons: can be tricky if you don't know Javascript.

3. Inclusion tag: Django provides a type of template tag called an inclusion tag, which is basically a custom template tag that can render dynamic content. In a way it's similar to a context variable, except your code to generate the content will only be called when you use the custom template tag in your template instead of being called for every view. Another benefit is the content is generated from a template of its own. You could do this with a normal context variable of course, but it's not as clean (IMHO) as using an inclusion tag. Pros: very straightforward, clean. Cons: won't dynamically refresh new content on client browsers.