django-uni-form (Django Uni-Form)

Django forms are easily rendered as tables, paragraphs, and unordered lists. However, elegantly rendered div based forms is something you have to do by hand. The purpose of this application is to provide a simple tag and/or filter that lets you quickly render forms in a div format.

Uni-form has been selected as the base model for the design of the forms.

Note: Django Uni-Form 0.7 breaks backwards compatibility with previous versions of Django Uni-Form. See Updating legacy Django Uni-Form to 0.7. All you have to do is update templates that call on the Django Uni-Form template tag from:

{% load uni_form %}

To:

{% load uni_form_tags %}

Installation

Dependencies

• JQuery 1.2.6

Installing django-uni-form

Install into your python path using pip or easy_install:

pip install django-uni-form
easy_install django-uni-form    

Add 'uni_form' to your INSTALLED_APPS in settings.py:

INSTALLED_APPS = (
    ...
    'uni_form',
    )

Depending on your setup, you may need to copy the media files to your local media folder:

cp -r <location-of-django-uni-form>/uni_form/media/uni_form/uni-form-generic.css <my-project>/media/uni_form/uni-form-generic.css
cp -r <location-of-django-uni-form>/uni_form/media/uni_form/uni-form.css <my-project>/media/uni_form/uni-form.css
cp -r <location-of-django-uni-form>/uni_form/media/uni_form/uni-form.jquery.js <my-project>/media/uni_form/uni-form.jquery.js    

Displaying the media files

Django Uni-Form requires three media files. You can see how we call them by looking in the templates/includes.html file. You can call those files in several ways:

1. Manually by copying the HTML into your own templates:

   <link rel="stylesheet" href="{{ MEDIA_URL }}uni_form/uni-form-generic.css" type="text/css" />
   <link rel="stylesheet" href="{{ MEDIA_URL }}uni_form/uni-form.css" type="text/css" />
   <script src="{{ MEDIA_URL }}uni_form/uni-form.jquery.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

2. Also make sure you have a link to where you keep a copy of JQuery 1.2.6 (We are looking into updating this ASAP):

   <script src="{{ MEDIA_URL }}js/jquery.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

3. Via use of the Django includes built-in template tag.

   {% include "uni_form/includes.html" %}

4. With some additional setup described below, via use of the Django Uni-Form uni_form_setup template tag.

   {% uni_form_setup %}

If you want to take advantage of the uni_form_setup tag, then you'll need to make sure 'django.core.context_processors.request' is in the TEMPLATE_CONTEXT_PROCESSORS tuple in your settings.py file:

TEMPLATE_CONTEXT_PROCESSORS = (
    ...
    'django.core.context_processors.request',
    )

Customizations on '*' required fields (optional)

If you don't like the use of '*' (asterisk) to denote required fields you can simply overrride the Django Uni-Form field.html. In your Django project's templates directory create a new directory called uni_form. Copy the Django Uni-Form field.html file to that directory and make the desired changes. For example:

cd ~/<my-projects>/<my-awesome-django-project>/templates/
mkdir uni_form
cd uni_form/
cp <my-site-packages>/Django-uni-form/uni_form/templates/uni_form/field.html .

Now you could change the asterisk to any other character, an image icon, or whatever else you want.

Using Uni-Form strict fields

Django Uni-Form implements form fields in html differently than the standard Uni-Form. If you want to adhere to the strict definition of Django Uni-Form relplace the field.html file with field.strict.html. You can just follow these instructions:

cd ~/<my-projects>/<my-awesome-django-project>/templates/
mkdir uni_form
cd uni_form/
cp <my-site-packages>/Django-uni-form/uni_form/templates/field.strict.html field.html

---

Usage

Using the django-uni-form filter (Easy and fun!)

1. Add {% load uni_form_tags %} to the template that calls your form.

2. Append your form call with the as_uni_form filter:

   {{ my_form|as_uni_form }}

3. Add the class of 'uniForm' to your form. Example:

   <form action="" method="post" class="uniForm">

4. Refresh and enjoy!

Using the django-uni-form templatetag in your view (Intermediate)

1. In your views.py add the following after field definitions:

   from django.shortcuts import render_to_response
   
   from uni_form.helpers import FormHelper, Submit, Reset
   from my_project.forms.MyForm
   
   def my_view(request):
   
       # Create the form
       form = MyForm() 
   
       # create a formHelper
       helper = FormHelper()
   
       # Add in a class and id
       helper.form_id = 'this-form-rocks'
       helper.form_class = 'search'
   
       # add in a submit and reset button
       submit = Submit('search','search this site')
       helper.add_input(submit)
       reset = Reset('reset','reset button')                
       helper.add_input(reset)
   
       # create the response dictionary
       response_dictionary = {'form':form, 'helper': helper}
   
       return render_to_response('my_template.html', response_dictionary)

2. In your template do the following:

   {% load uni_form_tags %}
   
   {% uni_form form helper %}

Using the django-uni-form templatetag in your form class (Intermediate)

1. In your form class add the following after field definitions:

   from uni_form.helpers import FormHelper, Submit, Reset
   
   class MyForm(forms.Form):
       title = forms.CharField(label=_("Title"), max_length=30, widget=forms.TextInput())
   
       # Attach a formHelper to your forms class.
       helper = FormHelper()
   
       # Add in a class and id
       helper.form_id = 'this-form-rocks'
       helper.form_class = 'search'
   
       # add in a submit and reset button
       submit = Submit('search','search this site')
       helper.add_input(submit)
       reset = Reset('reset','reset button')                
       helper.add_input(reset)

2. In your template do the following:

   {% load uni_form_tags %}
   {% with form.helper as helper %}
       {% uni_form form helper %}
   {% endwith %}

Using the django-uni-form templatetag to change action/method (Intermediate)

1. In your form class add the following after field definitions:

   from uni_form.helpers import FormHelper, Submit
   
   class MyForm(forms.Form):
       title = forms.CharField(label=_("Title"), max_length=30, widget=forms.TextInput())
   
       # Attach a formHelper to your forms class.
       helper = FormHelper()
   
       # Change the form and method
       helper.form_action = 'my-url-name-defined-in-url-conf'
       helper.form_method = 'GET' # Only GET and POST are legal
   
       # add in a submit and reset button
       submit = Submit('search','search this site')
       helper.add_input(submit)

2. In your template do the following:

   {% load uni_form_tags %}
   {% with form.helper as helper %}
       {% uni_form form helper %}
   {% endwith %}

Adding a layout to your form class (Intermediate)

Uniform helpers can use layout objects. A layout can consist of fieldsets, rows, columns, HTML and fields. A simple Example:

from django import forms

from uni_form.helpers import FormHelper, Submit, Reset
from uni_form.helpers import Layout, Fieldset, Row, HTML

class LayoutTestForm(forms.Form):

    is_company = forms.CharField(label="company", required=False, widget=forms.CheckboxInput())    
    email = forms.CharField(label="email", max_length=30, required=True, widget=forms.TextInput())        
    password1 = forms.CharField(label="password", max_length=30, required=True, widget=forms.PasswordInput())
    password2 = forms.CharField(label="re-enter password", max_length=30, required=True, widget=forms.PasswordInput())    
    first_name = forms.CharField(label="first name", max_length=30, required=True, widget=forms.TextInput())        
    last_name = forms.CharField(label="last name", max_length=30, required=True, widget=forms.TextInput())            

    # Attach a formHelper to your forms class.
    helper = FormHelper()

    # Create some HTML that you want in the page.
    # Yes, in real life your CSS would be cached, but this is just a simple example.
    style = """
    <style>
        .formRow {
            color: red;
        }
    </style>

    """
    # create the layout object
    layout = Layout(
                    # first fieldset shows the company
                    Fieldset('', 'is_company'),

                    # second fieldset shows the contact info
                    Fieldset('Contact details',
                            HTML(style),
                            'email',
                            Row('password1','password2'),
                            'first_name',
                            'last_name',
                             )
                    )

    helper.add_layout(layout)

    submit = Submit('add','Add this contact')
    helper.add_input(submit)

Then, just like in the previous example, add the following to your template:

{% load uni_form_tags %}
{% with form.helper as helper %}
    {% uni_form form helper %}
{% endwith %}

This allows you to group fields in fieldsets, or rows or columns or add HTML between fields etc.