CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythondjango
Jake
Jake

Reputation: 104

Is there a way to load file that is under templates folder on Django HTML?

I could load css file on Django html like this

{% load staticfiles %}
<link rel="stylesheet" href="{% static "css/style.css" %}">

I wonder why I can't load css file that is under templates folder.

<link rel="stylesheet" href="css/style.css">

Is there a way to load file that is under templates folder on Django HTML?

Why does Django wants me to put {% static "css/style.css" %} this format on all static files? Is it because much faster to load?

What If I load file that is under templates folder? Is it slow to load?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 1806

Answers (2)

sobolevn
sobolevn

Reputation: 18090

As I can see it, you have missed the concept of the templates and the static files in Django.

First of all, there are two independent mechanisms: loading a template file (your future HTML file) and loading your static files (css, js, images).

When loading a template Django uses TEMPLATE_LOADERS (docs), which are basically defined in your settings.py as:

TEMPLATE_LOADERS = (
    # Loads templates from DIRS setting:
    'django.template.loaders.filesystem.Loader', 

    # Loads templates from your installed apps:
    'django.template.loaders.app_directories.Loader', 
)

You can define a location of yout templates by setting DIRS (if you are using Django >= 1.8) or TEMPLATE_DIR (if Django < 1.8). There are several more steps in rendering your template such as: template context processors and so on, but it is all listed in the documentation.

Now about static files.

Static files are served by django.contrib.staticfiles app (docs) when DEBUG = True. In production it is done by Nginx, Apache or other Http-Servers. When loading a static file Django uses STATICFILES_FINDERS. They are usially defined as:

STATICFILES_FINDERS = (
    # Loads static files from STATICFILES_DIRS:
    "django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.FileSystemFinder",

    # Load static files from installed apps:
    "django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.AppDirectoriesFinder"
)

There are two main settings to care about: STATIC_URL and STATICFILES_DIRS. STATIC_URL is basically just a prefix, which is used to get your static files. It is almost always just '/static/'. And in STATICFILES_DIRS there are paths to your static files folders. It is sometimes extended to include node_modules, bower_components or things like that.

When dealing with static files in templates you need to append your STATIC_URL to your file's URL. The easiest way to do that is {% static %} tag.

A lot of confusion comes with STATIC_ROOT. It is just a path, where all your static files will be collected in production after running collectstatic management command.

Upvotes: 1

Julien Gr&#233;goire
Julien Gr&#233;goire

Reputation: 17134

Templates and static assets are two differents types of assets that need to be managed differently for security purposes.

All js, css and images files need to be provided to clients in order for your website to be working. They are handled from the client side so they need to be available. So static asset folder is made to be available, if you check view source and follow the link of these assets you'll see they can be opened directly in your broswer.

Templates however are used by django itself to generate the output that is set via your views. When a user opens a page, he doesn't access the template itself but the rendering made by django. So the template folder isn't accessible to end user by design, including the files that are in it. So the only things a user can access from a django application are the responses given by the views, that are based on urls patterns and the templates, and assets that are in static folder. So you can't, and shouldn't, link to static assets from anywhere else but your static folder.

Upvotes: 5

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