1. Method-based views
in Django applications
Gary Reynolds
Touch Technology
@goodtune
bitbucket.org/goodtune
github.com/goodtune

2. Refresher
• Last time we looked at building up a library
which will help save us some boilerplate
• It incorporated better form fields, simple
decorated mixins to enforce
authentication, and a few other niceties

3. This time
• What if we need to deploy the same
application multiple times?
• In our URLconf we could point to the
applications urls.py as many times as we
need...
from django.conf.urls.defaults import patterns, url
urlpatterns = patterns('',
url(r'^usual-use/', 'myapp.urls'),
url(r'^it/makes/sense/here/too/', 'myapp.urls'),
)

4. Issues
• If your application requires configuration at
run-time, you probably use a custom
settings.MYAPP_VAR or similar?
• That will usually apply globally, not per
mount point.
• If the application was an instance with it’s
own state, the issue goes away.

5. Basic anatomy
class MyApp(object):
def __init__(self, name='myapp', app_name='myapp'):
self.name = name
self.app_name = app_name
def get_urls(self):
urlpatterns = patterns('',
url(r'^$', self.index, name='index'),
)
@property
def urls(self):
return self.get_urls(), self.app_name, self.name
def index(self, request):
return HttpResponse('')

6. Let’s see it in practice

7. Horses for courses
• This book store is missing a view for the
details of a book.
• It really is an admin application, allowing
authenticated creation and updating of
Book instances by authenticated users.
• Lets use inheritance to split the
functionality.

8. Subclass our application

9. Real world example
• Tournament Control is an application for
managing sporting competitions
• Scheduling fixtures
• Allocating matches to grounds &
timeslots
• Recording results and automatic ladder
updates

10. Tournament Control
• Shameless plug
• http://www.sydney.touch.asn.au/
• http://www.touchsuperleague.org.uk/
• http://www.touchworldcup2011.co.uk/
• We’re interested in Touch Superleague
because they run multiple application
instances - they have venues in Edinburgh,
Cardiff, and Jersey.

12. Lets look at
the front-end
www.touchsuperleague.org.uk/edinburgh/draws-ladders

13. Questions?

14. • Sample project can be obtained from
bitbucket.org
• bitbucket.org/goodtune/sydjango-
example-two
• This presentation can be downloaded from
SlideShare
• slideshare.net/goodtune/method-based-
views-in-django-applications-14050952