Django Messages and Responses

Question

This is not a technical question, but the question "I am doing it right."

I have several models defined

class Style(models.Model): tag_xml = models.TextField() image = models.ImageField(upload_to="styles") user = models.ForeignKey(User) uploaded = models.DateField() class StyleMatch(models.Model): style = models.ForeignKey(Style) item = models.ForeignKey(FashionItem) 

they cannot be filled in via html forms simply because of the nature of the task, therefore, to fill them in, I have an html page with jquery and many event functions and other javascript goodies. When the save button is pressed, I call .ajax () and pass all the collected variables

 var saveRequest= $.ajax({ url: "/save_style/", type: "POST", data: "selection="+s+"&user="+user+"&src="+image_src, dataType: "text" }); 

My save_style mode then saves the values ​​in the model

 def save_style(request): if request.method == 'POST': selection = request.POST['selection'].rsplit("|") user = request.POST['user'] src = request.POST['src'] f = open(MEDIA_ROOT+src) image_file = File(f) u = User.objects.get(id=user) style = Style(tag_xml = "", image = image_file, user = u, uploaded = date.today()) style.save() for s in selection: if (s != ''): match = FashionItem.objects.get(id=s) styleMatch = StyleMatch(style = style, item = match) styleMatch.save() i = StyleMatch.objects.filter(style=style) items = FashionItem.objects.filter(id__in=i) return render_to_response('style_saved.html', dict(image=src, items=items, media_url = MEDIA_URL), context_instance=RequestContext(request)) 

After that, I really want to go to the success page and display the entries that I just added to the model, however, if I use render_to_response and pass the details of the model, I need to rebuild the entire page in javascript, it seems better to redirect to a new template, but if I am using HttpResponseRedirect a) I cannot pass values ​​and b) it does not seem to be redirected quite correctly (I think because the message comes from my javascript).

So finally my questions

• Is this really how I should do it? The django dossiers don't really seem to cover these somewhat more complex areas, so I'm a little unsure.
• Should I use render_to_response or HttpResponseRedirect above? Or perhaps the third option that I do not know about.

Any suggestions appreciated.

FYI I know that the code above is not perfect, i.e. missing verification, comments ... etc., it was simply provided for demonstration purposes. Feel free to point out any serious issues.

Answer 1

Depending on the nature of your application, you probably should not create entire pages of your pages using JavaScript. However, since we are already there, I used the following solution with good results:

Consider creating a “fragment” template, as I call them. This is just a bit of HTML that is designed for capsules to transfer data through AJAX. Make render_to_response for this snippet, pass the processed view data as variables, then extract that data through AJAX and use JavaScript to replace the HTML in the specified div element with the returned data.

There are some pitfalls with the above solution, such as styling and binding an event handler on a template fragment, but this should at least make you work. Just a tip in this regard, check out jQuery.on ().

Answer 2

pass all collected variables

Why not $(form).serialize() ?

stores values ​​in the model

Why not use django.forms.ModelForm (or a few of them)?

doesn't seem to be redirected quite correctly

Since redirects in AJAX are handled in an AJAX call and do not affect the open page if you somehow process the received data in JS.

In addition, you do not have any data verification and | or error messages, which is bad. In fact, ModelForm should be of great help in this.