Django snippets: Form rendering using a template instead of builtin HTML

from django.utils.html import escape

def makeTemplatedForm(template=None):
    """Create a form class which formats its fields using the provided template.

    The template is given a dictionary containing the following key-value
    pairs:

        "label":        field label, if any,
        "errors":       list of errors, if any,
        "text":         widget rendering for an unbound form / field value for a bound form,
        "help_text":    field help text, if any
    """
    from django.template import loader
    import django.newforms as forms

    class TemplatedForm(forms.BaseForm):
        _template = template
        def __getitem__(self, name):
            "Returns a rendered field with the given name."
            #syslog.syslog("FormattingForm.__getitem__(%s)" % (name, ))
            try:
                field = self.fields[name]
            except KeyError:
                raise KeyError('Key %r not found in Form' % name)
            if not isinstance(field, forms.fields.Field):
                return field
            bf = forms.forms.BoundField(self, field, name)
            errors = [escape(error) for error in bf.errors]
            rendering = loader.render_to_string(self._template, { "errors": errors, "label": bf.label, "text": unicode(bf), "help_text": field.help_text, "field":field })
            return rendering
    return TemplatedForm

As an alternative to using forms rendered with the default hard-coded html, this factory function will take a template name as argument, and return a Form class based on django.newforms.BaseForm, which will render each form field using the supplied template.

As an example, I'm using this class as follows in one project (slightly edited with respect to project and app names):

# Get a form class which renders fields using a given template
CustomForm = proj.utils.makeTemplatedForm(template="app/formfield.html")

# Get base form class for the details model
BaseAppForm = forms.form_for_model(models.AppDetail, form=CustomForm)

using this template:

{% if errors %}
<ul class="errorlist">
   {% for error in errors %}
   <li>{{ error }}</li>
   {% endfor %}
</ul>
{% endif %}
{% if field.required %}<span class="required">*</span>{% endif %}{{ text }}
{{ help_text }}

Author:: leoh
Posted:: June 4, 2007
Language:: Python
Tags:: newforms rendering template
Score:: 4 (after 4 ratings)

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Form rendering using a template instead of builtin HTML

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