Snippet List
Every now and then you need to have items in your database which have a specific order. As SQL does not save rows in any order, you need to take care about this for yourself. No - actually, you don't need to anymore. You can just use this file - it is designed as kind-of plug-in for the Django ORM.
Usage is (due to use of meta-classes) quite simple. It is recommended to save this snippet into a separate file called `positional.py`. To use it, you only have to import `PositionalSortMixIn` from the `positional` module and inherit from it in your own, custom model (but *before* you inherit from `models.Model`, the order counts).
Usage example: Add this to your `models.py`
from positional import PositionalSortMixIn
class MyModel(PositionalSortMixIn, models.Model):
name = models.CharField(maxlength=200, unique=True)
Now you need to create the database tables: `PositionalSortMixIn` will automatically add a `postition` field to your model. In your views you can use it simply with `MyModel.objects.all().order_by('position')` and you get the objects sorted by their position. Of course you can move the objects down and up, by using `move_up()`, `move_down()` etc.
In case you feel you have seen this code somewhere - right, this snippet is a modified version of [snippet #245](/snippets/245/) which I made earlier. It is basically the same code but uses another approach to display the data in an ordered way. Instead of overriding the `Manager` it adds the `position` field to `Meta.ordering`. Of course, all of this is done automatically, you only need to use `YourItem.objects.all()` to get the items in an ordered way.
Update: Now you can call your custom managers `object` as long as the default manager (the one that is defined first) still returns all objects. This Mix-in absolutely needs to be able to access all elements saved.
In case you find any errors just write a comment, updated versions are published here from time to time as new bugs are found and fixed.
- db
- orm
- database
- plugin
- mixin
This middleware remembers the last URLs that the user visited on your Django-site and saves them into the `request.session`.
The fields are `currently_visiting` for the URL that is opened by the user and `last_visited` which is the URL before. Most of the time, you'll need only `last_visited`, as `currently_visiting` is just an implementation detail.
For what is this good for? Imagine, you have to implement something like JavaScripts `history.back()` or `history.forward(-1)` but without JavaScript. Things start to get difficult when using JavaScript is not possible, for whatever reason.
This snippet was created because I needed to redirect the user to the page he's been watching before clicking on the "translate" link. One other alternative would be adding the URL the user was visiting as a GET field to the "translate" link, but I hoped to find a possibility to avoid GET.
This snippet works quite well as a proof of concept, the only known wart is when the user uses tabs or multible windows on the site, things get messed up. This cannot be solved, it's a restriction imposed by the design of HTTP.
First off: This snippet is more or less obsoleted by [snippet #259](/snippets/259/). The way that snippet #259 uses feels cleaner and more usable. It is basically the same code but the magic works a little bit different. In case you prefer this way, I've left this snippet as-is.
Maybe you know this problem: you have some objects in your database and would like to display them in some way. The problem: the Django ORM does not provide any way to sort model instances by a user-defined criterion. There was already a plug-in in SQLAlchemy called [orderinglist](http://www.sqlalchemy.org/docs/plugins.html#plugins_orderinglist), so implementing this in Django was basically not a big deal.
Usage is (due to use of meta-classes) quite simple. It is recommended to save this snippet into a separate file called `positional.py`. To use it, you only have to import `PositionalSortMixIn` from the `positional` module and inherit from it in your own, custom model (but *before* you inherit from `models.Model`, the order counts).
- db
- orm
- database
- plugin
- mixin
Leonidas has posted 3 snippets.