Django static files not loading

Question

I'm trying to add .css and .js file in my HTML template files that made for Django. I have followed the official doc, so my configurations set to:

urls.py

urlpatterns = patterns('',
            (r'^site_media/(?P<path>.*)$', 'django.views.static.serve',
                {'document_root': settings.STATIC_DOC_ROOT}),

settings.py

STATIC_DOC_ROOT = ''/myfirstapp/templates/seminar_form/' 

But still I couldn't get it right, those .css .js and image files are still doesn't load in my HTML,but those files can access (perfectly viewable) from hitting the URL on browser like this:

http://127.0.0.1:8000/site_media/images/calendar.png 

Template code

<img src="{{ site_media }}images/calendar.png"> 

Answer 1

If you can view the files by hitting the URL directly in your browser, then I'd guess you've got your MEDIA_URL settings wrong, or there's something wrong in your template code. What URL is your HTML referencing for your CSS/JS/Images?

Make sure you're passing through your MEDIA_URL so it's available in your template's context, which you do by wrapping up the request passed to your view functions in a RequestContext, like this:

def some_view(request):
    # ...
    return render_to_response('my_template.html',
                              my_data_dictionary,
                              context_instance=RequestContext(request))

Provided you've got your MEDIA_URL setting correct, and you are serving your media correctly (which your question suggests you are) you should be able to access media using things like:

<img src="{{ MEDIA_URL }}relative/path/to/media.jpg" alt="Foobar" />

After edit to show template code:

From your template code, it looks like you're trying to reference files rooted at a template variable called site_media, which probably doesn't exist.

You need to put something like this in your settings.py:

MEDIA_URL = u'/site_media/'

Then change your template code to something like this:

<img src="{{ MEDIA_URL }}images/calendar.png">

and make sure you're passing MEDIA_URL to your template from your view function.

After comment asking for clarification about RequestContext:

The online Django book has some helpful (though currently lacking in some parts) documentation about RequestContext. Personally, I use the render_to decorator from django-annoying to avoid having to think about it. In place of my earlier sample view code, you can just do this:

from annoying import render_to

@render_to('my_template.html')
def some_view(request):
    ...
    return my_data_dictionary

Essentially, you just decorate your view function, passing in the template you want rendered, and then just return a dict containing the extra context variables you want set (i.e. context variables in addition to those that are set for you by RequestContext, such as MEDIA_URL).

This approach obviously doesn't work if your view might use different templates depending on some condition, but there are simple ways around that:

def some_view(request, some_var):
  ...
  if some_var:
    return render_to_response('my_template.html',
                              my_data_dictionary,
                              context_instance=RequestContext(request))
  else:
    return render_to_response('my_other_template.html',
                              my_data_dictionary,
                              context_instance=RequestContext(request))

Can be rewritten as:

def some_view(request, some_var):
  ...
  if some_var:
    return _some_private_view(request, my_data_dictionary)
  else:
    return _some_other_private_view(request, my_data_dictionary)

@render_to('my_template.html')
def _some_private_view(request, my_data_dictionary):
  return my_data_dictionary

@render_to('my_other_template.html')
def _some_private_view(request, my_data_dictionary):
  return my_data_dictionary

Which seems clearer to me, at least.