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django-ajax-blocks

This Django app allows the user to render templates partially and serve the result via JSON. This enables faster template rendering and less bandwidth usage.

The app is an alpha currently and mainly to demonstrate the idea but it should work well enough.

Consider the following example using a single view:

from django.utils.text import mark_safe
from ajax_blocks import TemplateResponse

def page(request):
    p = int(request.GET.get('page', 1))
    if p == 1:
        title = 'Welcome to my site'
        content = mark_safe('Hi, <a href="/?page=2">Click me</a>')
    else:
        title = 'Loaded via AJAX'
        content = 'Impressive, now try forward and back buttons'
    c = {'title': title, 'content': content}
    return TemplateResponse(request, 'page.html', c, ajax_blocks=('title', 'content'))

and this template:

{% load static %}
<html>
  <script type="text/javascript" src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.9.1.min.js"></script>
  <script type="text/javascript" src="{% static 'ajax_blocks/helpers.js' %}"></script>
  <script type="text/javascript">
  $(document).ready(function(){
    $('a').click(function(ev) {
      render_ajax_blocks(ev.target.href);
      return false;
    });
  });
  </script>
<head>
  <title data-block="title">{% block title %}{{ title }}{% endblock title %}</title>
</head>
<body data-block="content">{% block content %}{{ content }}{% endblock content %}</body>
</html>

The first request is normally served as HTML. When the user clicks the link only the title and content blocks are rendered on the server and returned as JSON. The history updates via pushState on the client side and as such enables the forward and back buttons to work properly. While this example is somewhat minimal it already cuts bandwidth down to a third.

The included helpers.js only serves as a simple example, a realworld application might wanna use something better suited to their needs.

More complicated examples include template inheritance which also works, if not you found a bug. If that's the case please let me know!

Todo

  • Tests
  • Better JS integration

Installation

First, install the app with your favorite package manager, e.g.:

pip install django-ajax-blocks

Alternatively, use the repository on Github.

Then configure your Django site to use the app:

  1. Add 'ajax_blocks' to your INSTALLED_APPS setting.