django CMS documentation¶

Overview¶

django CMS is a modern web publishing platform built with Django, the web application framework “for perfectionists with deadlines”.

django CMS offers out-of-the-box support for the common features you’d expect from a CMS, but can also be easily customised and extended by developers to create a site that is tailored to their precise needs.

Tutorials ¶

For the new django CMS developer, from installation to creating your own addon applications.

How-to guides ¶

Practical step-by-step guides for the more experienced developer, covering several important topics.

Key topics ¶

Explanation and analysis of some key concepts in django CMS.

Reference ¶

Technical reference material, for classes, methods, APIs, commands.

Join us online¶

django CMS is supported by a friendly and very knowledgeable community.

Our IRC channel, #django-cms, is on irc.freenode.net. If you don’t have an IRC client, you can join our IRC channel using the KiwiIRC web client, which works pretty well.

Our django CMS users email list is for general django CMS questions and discussion

Our django CMS developers email list is for discussions about the development of django CMS

Why django CMS?¶

django CMS is a well-tested CMS platform that powers sites both large and small. Here are a few of the key features:

robust internationalisation (i18n) support for creating multilingual sites
virtually unlimited undo history, allowing editors to revert to a previous version
front-end editing, providing rapid access to the content management interface
support for a variety of editors with advanced text editing features.
a flexible plugins system that lets developers put powerful tools at the fingertips of editors, without overwhelming them with a difficult interface
...and much more

There are other capable Django-based CMS platforms but here’s why you should consider django CMS:

thorough documentation
easy and comprehensive integration into existing projects - django CMS isn’t a monolithic application
a healthy, active and supportive developer community
a strong culture of good code, including an emphasis on automated testing

Release Notes¶

This document refers to version 3.3.4

Warning

Version 3.0 introduces some significant changes that require action if you are upgrading from a previous version. Please refer to Upgrading from previous versions

Table of contents¶

Tutorials¶

The pages in this section of the documentation are aimed at the newcomer to django CMS. They’re designed to help you get started quickly, and show how easy it is to work with django CMS as a developer who wants to customise it and get it working according to their own requirements.

These tutorials take you step-by-step through some key aspects of this work. They’re not intended to explain the topics in depth, or provide reference material, but they will leave you with a good idea of what it’s possible to achieve in just a few steps, and how to go about it.

Once you’re familiar with the basics presented in these tutorials, you’ll find the more in-depth coverage of the same topics in the How-to section.

The tutorials follow a logical progression, starting from installation of django CMS and the creation of a brand new project, and build on each other, so it’s recommended to work through them in the order presented here.

Installing django CMS¶

We’ll get started by setting up our environment.

Requirements¶

django CMS requires Django 1.8, and Python 2.7, 3.3 or 3.4.

Your working environment¶

We’re going to assume that you have a reasonably recent version of virtualenv installed and that you have some basic familiarity with it.

Create and activate a virtual env¶

virtualenv env
source env/bin/activate

Note that if you’re using Windows, to activate the virtualenv you’ll need:

env\Scripts\activate

Use the django CMS installer¶

The django CMS installer is a helpful script that takes care of setting up a new project.

Install it:

pip install djangocms-installer

This provides you with a new command, djangocms.

Create a new directory to work in, and cd into it:

mkdir tutorial-project
cd tutorial-project

Run it to create a new Django project called mysite:

djangocms -f -p . mysite

This means:

run the django CMS installer
install Django Filer too (-f) - required for this tutorial
use the current directory as the parent of the new project directory (-p .)
call the new project directory mysite

Note

About Django Filer

Django Filer, a useful application for managing files and processing images. Although it’s not required for django CMS itself, a vast number of django CMS addons use it, and nearly all django CMS projects have it installed. If you know you won’t need it, omit the flag. See the django CMS installer documentation for more information.

Warning

djangocms-installer expects directory . to be empty at this stage, and will check for this, and will warn if it’s not. You can get it to skip the check and go ahead anyway using the -s flag; note that this may overwrite existing files.

Windows users may need to do a little extra to make sure Python files are associated correctly if that doesn’t work right away:

assoc .py=Python.file
ftype Python.File="C:\Users\Username\workspace\demo\env\Scripts\python.exe" "%1" %*

For the purposes of this tutorial, it’s recommended that you answer the installer’s questions as follows (where we suggest something different from the default, it’s indicated with an asterisk *).

Database configuration (in URL format): sqlite://localhost/project.db
django CMS version: stable
Django version: stable
Activate Django I18N / L10N setting: yes
Install and configure reversion support: yes
Languages to enable. Option can be provided multiple times, or as a comma separated list: en, de *
Optional default time zone: America/Chicago
Activate Django time zone support: yes
Activate CMS permission management: yes
Use Twitter Bootstrap Theme: yes *
Use custom template set: no
Load a starting page with examples after installation: yes *

Create a Django admin user when invited.

Start up the runserver¶

python manage.py runserver

Open http://localhost:8000/ in your browser, where you should be presented with your brand new django CMS homepage.

Congratulations, you now have installed a fully functional CMS.

To log in, append ?edit to the URL and hit enter. This will enable the toolbar, from where you can log in and manage your website.

If you are not already familiar with django CMS, take a few minutes to run through the basics of the django CMS tutorial for users.

Templates & Placeholders¶

In this tutorial we’ll introduce Placeholders, and we’re also going to show how you can make your own HTML templates CMS-ready.

Templates¶

You can use HTML templates to customise the look of your website, define Placeholders to mark sections for managed content and use special tags to generate menus and more.

You can define multiple templates, with different layouts or built-in components, and choose them for each page as required. A page’s template can be switched for another at any time.

You’ll find the site’s templates in mysite/templates.

If you didn’t change the automatically-created home page’s template, it’s feature.html.

Placeholders¶

Placeholders are an easy way to define sections in an HTML template that will be filled with content from the database when the page is rendered. This content is edited using django CMS’s frontend editing mechanism, using Django template tags.

You can see them in feature.html: {% placeholder "feature" %} and {% placeholder "content" %}.

You’ll also see {% load cms_tags %} in that file - cms_tags is the required template tag library.

If you’re not already familiar with Django template tags, you can find out more in the Django documentation.

Add a new placeholder {% placeholder "splashbox" %} to the template’s HTML structure. You can add it anywhere, for example:

 {% block content %}
     <div class="jumbotron">
         {% placeholder "feature" %}
     </div>
     <div>
         {% placeholder "content" %}
     </div>
     <div>
         {% placeholder "splashbox" %}
     </div>
 {% endblock content %}

If you switch to Structure mode, you’ll see the new placeholder available for use.

Static Placeholders¶

The content of the placeholders we’ve encountered so far is different for every page. Sometimes though you’ll want to have a section on your website which should be the same on every single page, such as a footer block.

You could hard-code your footer into the template, but it would be nicer to be able to manage it through the CMS. This is what static placeholders are for.

Static placeholders are an easy way to display the same content on multiple locations on your website. Static placeholders act almost like normal placeholders, except for the fact that once a static placeholder is created and you added content to it, it will be saved globally. Even when you remove the static placeholders from a template, you can reuse them later.

So let’s add a footer to all our pages. Since we want our footer on every single page, we should add it to our base template (mysite/templates/base.html). Place it at the bottom of the HTML <body>:

<footer>
  {% static_placeholder 'footer' %}
</footer>

Save the template and return to your browser. Refresh any page in Structure mode, and you’ll see the new static placeholder. If you add some content to it in the usual way, you’ll see that it appears on your site’s other pages too.

Rendering Menus¶

In order to render the CMS’s menu in your template you can use the show_menu tag.

The example we use in mysite/templates/base.html is:

<ul class="nav navbar-nav">
    {% show_menu 0 1 100 100 "menu.html" %}
</ul>

Any template that uses show_menu must load the CMS’s menu_tags library first:

{% load menu_tags %}

If you chose “bootstrap” while setting up with djangocms-installer, the menu will already be there and templates/menu.html will already contain a version that uses bootstrap compatible markup.

Next we’ll look at Integrating applications.

Integrating applications¶

All the following sections of this tutorial are concerned with integrating other applications into django CMS, which is where a vast part of its power comes from.

Integrating applications doesn’t just mean installing them alongside django CMS, so that they peacefully co-exist. It means using django CMS’s features to build them into a single coherent web project that speeds up the work of managing the site, and makes possible richer and more automated publishing.

It’s key to the way that django CMS integration works that it doesn’t require you to modify your other applications unless you want to. This is particularly important when you’re using third-party applications and don’t want to have to maintain your own forked versions of them. (The only exception to this is if you decide to build django CMS features directly into the applications themselves, for example when using placeholders in other applications.)

For this tutorial, we’re going to take a basic Django opinion poll application and integrate it into the CMS. So we’ll install that, and create a second, independent, Polls/CMS Integration application to manage the integration, leaving the first untouched.

Install the `polls` application¶

Install the application from its GitHub repository using pip:

pip install git+http://git@github.com/divio/django-polls.git#egg=polls

Let’s add this application to our project. Add 'polls' to the end of INSTALLED_APPS in your project’s settings.py (see the note on The INSTALLED_APPS setting about ordering ).

Add the following line to urlpatterns in the project’s urls.py:

url(r'^polls/', include('polls.urls', namespace='polls')),

Make sure this line is included before the line for the django-cms urls:

url(r'^', include('cms.urls')),

django CMS’s URL pattern needs to be last, because it “swallows up” anything that hasn’t already been matched by a previous pattern.

Now run the application’s migrations:

python manage.py migrate polls

At this point you should be able to log in to the Django admin - http://localhost:8000/admin/ - and find the Polls application.

Create a new Poll, for example:

Question: Which browser do you prefer?

Choices:
- Safari
- Firefox
- Chrome

Now if you visit http://localhost:8000/en/polls/, you should be able to see the published poll and submit a response.

Improve the templates for Polls¶

You’ll have noticed that the in the Polls application we only have minimal templates, and no navigation or styling.

Our django CMS pages on the other hand have access to a number of default templates in the project, all of which extend one called base.html. So, let’s improve this by overriding the polls application’s base template.

We’ll do this in the project directory.

In mysite/templates, add polls/base.html, containing:

{% extends 'base.html' %}

{% block content %}
    {% block polls_content %}
    {% endblock %}
{% endblock %}

Refresh the /polls/ page again, which should now be properly integrated into the site.

Set up a new `polls_cms_integration` application¶

So far, however, the Polls application has been integrated into the project, but not into django CMS itself. The two applications are completely independent. They cannot make use of each other’s data or functionality.

Let’s create the new Polls/CMS Integration application where we will bring them together.

Create the application¶

Create a new package at the project root called polls_cms_integration:

python manage.py startapp polls_cms_integration

So our workspace looks like this:

env/
    src/  # the django polls application is in here
polls_cms_integration/  # the newly-created application
    __init__.py
    admin.py
    models.py
    migrations.py
    tests.py
    views.py
mysite/
static/
project.db
requirements.txt

Add it to `INSTALLED_APPS`¶

Next is to integrate the polls_cms_integration application into the project.

Add polls_cms_integration to INSTALLED_APPS in settings.py - and now we’re ready to use it to being integrating Polls with django CMS. We’ll start by developing a Polls plugin.

Note

The project or the application?

Earlier, we added new templates to the project. We could equally well have have added templates/polls/base.html inside polls_cms_integration. After all, that’s where we’re going to be doing all the other integration work.

However, we’d now have an application that makes assumptions about the name of the template it should extend (see the first line of the base.html template we created) which might not be correct for a different project.

Also, we’d have to make sure that polls_cms_integration came before polls in INSTALLED_APPS, otherwise the templates in polls_cms_integration would not in fact override the ones in polls. Putting them in the project guarantees that they will override those in all applications.

Either way of doing it is reasonable, as long as you understand their implications.

Plugins¶

In this tutorial we’re going to take a basic Django opinion poll application and integrate it into the CMS.

Install the `polls` application¶

Install the application from its GitHub repository using pip -e - this also places it in your virtualenv’s src directory as a cloned Git repository:

pip install -e git+http://git@github.com/divio/django-polls.git#egg=polls

You should end up with a folder structure similar to this:

env/
    src/
        django-polls/
            polls/
                __init__.py
                admin.py
                models.py
                templates/
                tests.py
                urls.py
                views.py

Let’s add it this application to our project. Add 'polls' to the end of INSTALLED_APPS in your project’s settings.py (see the note on The INSTALLED_APPS setting about ordering ).

Add the following line to urlpatterns in the project’s urls.py:

url(r'^polls/', include('polls.urls', namespace='polls')),

Make sure this line is included before the line for the django-cms urls:

url(r'^', include('cms.urls')),

django CMS’s URL pattern needs to be last, because it “swallows up” anything that hasn’t already been matched by a previous pattern.

Now run the application’s migrations:

python manage.py migrate polls

At this point you should be able to log in to the Django admin - localhost:8000/admin/ - and find the Polls application.

Create a new Poll, for example:

Question: Which browser do you prefer?

Choices:
- Safari
- Firefox
- Chrome

Now if you visit http://localhost:8000/en/polls/, you should be able to see the published poll and submit a response.

Set up a base template for the application¶

However, in pages of the Polls application we only have minimal templates, and no navigation or styling.

Let’s improve this by overriding the polls application’s base template.

In mysite/templates, add polls/base.html, containing:

{% extends 'base.html' %}

{% block content %}
    {% block polls_content %}
    {% endblock %}
{% endblock %}

Refresh the /polls/ page again, which should now be properly integrated into the site.

So now we have integrated the standard polls application into our project.

Create a new `polls_cms_integration` application¶

So far, however, the polls application has been integrated into the project, but not into django CMS itself.

If you’re already familiar with the CMS for a little, you’ll have encountered django CMS Plugins - the objects you can place into placeholders on your pages: “Text”, “Image” and so forth.

We’re now going to extend the Django poll application so we can embed a poll easily into any CMS page. We’ll put this integration code in a separate package, a Polls/CMS Integration application in our project.

Note

Why not build the plugin code into the polls application package?

This would certainly be possible, and in fact, if you were developing your own application it’s what we would recommend. For a third-party application such as Polls however, placing the plugin code into a separate package means we don’t have to modify or fork the original.

Create a new package at the project root called polls_cms_integration:

python manage.py startapp polls_cms_integration

So our workspace looks like this:

env/
    src/  # the django polls application is in here
polls_cms_integration/  # the newly-created application
    __init__.py
    admin.py
    models.py
    migrations.py
    tests.py
    views.py
mysite/
static/
project.db
requirements.txt

The Plugin Model¶

In your poll application’s models.py add the following:

from django.db import models
from cms.models import CMSPlugin
from polls.models import Poll


class PollPluginModel(CMSPlugin):
    poll = models.ForeignKey(Poll)

    def __str__(self): # use __unicode__() if you are using Python 2
        return self.poll.question

Note

django CMS plugins inherit from cms.models.CMSPlugin (or a sub-class thereof) and not models.Model.

PollPluginModel might seem an odd choice for a model name (that is, with model in the name) but it helps distinguish it from the next class, PollPluginPublisher, that we need to create.

The Plugin Class¶

Now create a new file cms_plugins.py in the same folder your models.py is in. The plugin class is responsible for providing django CMS with the necessary information to render your plugin.

For our poll plugin, we’re going to write the following plugin class:

from cms.plugin_base import CMSPluginBase
from cms.plugin_pool import plugin_pool
from polls_cms_integration.models import PollPluginModel
from django.utils.translation import ugettext as _


class PollPluginPublisher(CMSPluginBase):
    model = PollPluginModel  # model where plugin data are saved
    module = _("Polls")
    name = _("Poll Plugin")  # name of the plugin in the interface
    render_template = "polls_cms_integration/poll_plugin.html"

    def render(self, context, instance, placeholder):
        context.update({'instance': instance})
        return context

plugin_pool.register_plugin(PollPluginPublisher)  # register the plugin

Note

All plugin classes must inherit from cms.plugin_base.CMSPluginBase and must register themselves with the plugin_pool.

A reasonable convention for plugin naming is:

PollPluginModel: the model class
PollPluginPublisher: the plugin class

You don’t need to follow this convention, but choose one that makes sense and stick to it.

The template¶

The render_template attribute in the plugin class is required, and tells the plugin which render_template to use when rendering.

In this case the template needs to be at polls_cms_integration /templates/polls_cms_integration/poll_plugin.html and should look something like this:

<h1>{{ instance.poll.question }}</h1>

<form action="{% url 'polls:vote' instance.poll.id %}" method="post">
    {% csrf_token %}
    <div class="form-group">
        {% for choice in instance.poll.choice_set.all %}
            <div class="radio">
                <label>
                    <input type="radio" name="choice" value="{{ choice.id }}">
                    {{ choice.choice_text }}
                </label>
            </div>
        {% endfor %}
    </div>
    <input type="submit" value="Vote" />
</form>

Integrate the `polls_cms_integration` application¶

The final step is to integrate the polls_cms_integration application into the project.

Add polls_cms_integration to INSTALLED_APPS in settings.py and create a database migration to add the plugin table:

python manage.py makemigrations polls_cms_integration
python manage.py migrate polls_cms_integration

Finally, start the runserver and visit http://localhost:8000/.

You can now drop the Poll Plugin into any placeholder on any page, just as you would any other plugin.

the 'Poll plugin' in the plugin selector

Next we’ll integrate the Polls application more fully into our django CMS project.

Apphooks¶

Right now, our Django Polls application is statically hooked into the project’s urls.py. This is all right, but we can do more, by attaching applications to django CMS pages.

Create an apphook¶

We do this with an apphook, created using a CMSApp sub-class, which tells the CMS how to include that application.

Apphooks live in a file called cms_apps.py, so create one in your Polls/CMS Integration application, i.e. in polls_cms_integration.

This is a very basic example of an apphook for a django CMS application:

from cms.app_base import CMSApp
from cms.apphook_pool import apphook_pool
from django.utils.translation import ugettext_lazy as _


class PollsApphook(CMSApp):
    app_name = "polls"
    name = _("Polls Application")

    def get_urls(self, page=None, language=None, **kwargs):
        return ["polls.urls"]


apphook_pool.register(PollsApphook)  # register the application

What this all means¶

In the PollsApphook class, we have done several key things:

The app_name attribute gives the system a way to refer to the apphook - see Attaching an application multiple times for details on why this matters.
name is a human-readable name for the admin user.
The get_urls() method is what actually hooks the application in, returning a list of URL configurations that will be made active wherever the apphook is used.

Restart the runserver. This is necessary because we have created a new file containing Python code that won’t be loaded until the server restarts. You only have to do this the first time the new file has been created.

Apply the apphook to a page¶

Now we need to create a new page, and attach the Polls application to it through this apphook.

Create and save a new page, then publish it.

Note

Your apphook won’t work until the page has been published.

In its Advanced settings, choose “Polls Application” from the Application menu, and save once more.

Refresh the page, and you’ll find that the Polls application is now available directly from the new django CMS page.

You can now remove the mention of the Polls application (url(r'^polls/', include('polls.urls', namespace='polls'))) from your project’s urls.py - it’s no longer even required there.

Later, we’ll install a django-CMS-compatible third-party application.

Extending the Toolbar¶

django CMS allows you to control what appears in the toolbar. This allows you to integrate your application in the frontend editing mode of django CMS and provide your users with a streamlined editing experience.

See it at work¶

Visit your Polls page on your site, and you’ll see a new Polls item in the toolbar.

It gives you quick access to the list of Polls in the Admin, and gives you a shortcut for creating a new Poll.

There’s a lot more to django CMS toolbar classes than this - see Extending the Toolbar for more.

Extending the navigation menu¶

You may have noticed that while our Polls application has been integrated into the CMS, with plugins, toolbar menu items and so on, the site’s navigation menu is still only determined by django CMS Pages.

We can hook into the django CMS menu system to add our own nodes to that navigation menu.

Create the navigation menu¶

We create the menu using a CMSAttachMenu sub-class, and use the get_nodes() method to add the nodes.

For this we need a file called cms_menus.py in our application. Add cms_menus.py in polls_cms_integration/:

from django.core.urlresolvers import reverse
from django.utils.translation import ugettext_lazy as _

from cms.menu_bases import CMSAttachMenu
from menus.base import NavigationNode
from menus.menu_pool import menu_pool

from polls.models import Poll


class PollsMenu(CMSAttachMenu):
    name = _("Polls Menu")  # give the menu a name this is required.

    def get_nodes(self, request):
        """
        This method is used to build the menu tree.
        """
        nodes = []
        for poll in Poll.objects.all():
            node = NavigationNode(
                title=poll.question,
                url=reverse('polls:detail', args=(poll.pk,)),
                id=poll.pk,  # unique id for this node within the menu
            )
            nodes.append(node)
        return nodes

menu_pool.register_menu(PollsMenu)

What’s happening here:

we define a PollsMenu class, and register it
we give the class a name attribute (will be displayed in admin)
in its get_nodes() method, we build and return a list of nodes, where:
first we get all the Poll objects
... and then create a NavigationNode object from each one
... and return a list of these NavigationNodes

This menu class won’t actually do anything until attached to a page. In the Advanced settings of the page to which you attached the apphook earlier, select “Polls Menu” from the list of Attached menu options, and save once more. (You could add the menu to any page, but it makes most sense to add it to this page.)

You can force the menu to be added automatically to the page by the apphook if you consider this appropriate. See Apphook menus for information on how to do that.

Note

The point here is to illustrate the basic principles. In this actual case, note that:

If you’re going to use sub-pages, you’ll need to improve the menu styling to make it work a bit better.
Since the Polls page lists all the Polls in it anyway, this isn’t really the most practical addition to the menu.

Content creation wizards¶

Content creation wizards allow you to make use of the toolbar’s Create button in your own applications. It opens up a simple dialog box with the basic fields required to create a new item.

django CMS uses it for creating Pages, but you can add your own models to it.

In the polls_cms_integration application, add a cms_wizards.py file, containing:

from cms.wizards.wizard_base import Wizard
from cms.wizards.wizard_pool import wizard_pool

from polls_cms_integration.forms import PollWizardForm
from polls.models import Poll


class PollWizard(Wizard):
    pass

poll_wizard = PollWizard(
    title="Poll",
    weight=200,  # determines the ordering of wizards in the Create dialog
    form=PollWizardForm,
    description="Create a new Poll",
)

wizard_pool.register(poll_wizard)

A wizard needs a form, so create a forms.py too:

from django import forms

from polls.models import Poll


class PollWizardForm(forms.ModelForm):
    class Meta:
        model = Poll
        exclude = []

Refresh the Polls page, hit the Create button in the toolbar - and the wizard dialog will open, offering you a new wizard for creating Polls.

Note

Once again, this particular example is for illustration only. In the case of a Poll, with its multiple Questions associated with it via foreign keys, we really want to be able to edit those questions at the same time too.

That would require a much more sophisticated form and processing than is possible within the scope of this tutorial.

Integrating a third-party application¶

We’ve already written our own django CMS plugins and apps, but now we want to extend our CMS with a third-party application, Aldryn News & Blog.

Basic installation¶

First, we need to install the app into our virtual environment from PyPI:

pip install aldryn-newsblog

Django settings¶

`INSTALLED_APPS`¶

Add the application and any of its requirements that are not there already to INSTALLED_APPS in settings.py. Some will be already present; it’s up to you to check them because you need to avoid duplication:

# you will probably need to add:
'aldryn_apphooks_config',
'aldryn_boilerplates',
'aldryn_categories',
'aldryn_common',
'aldryn_newsblog',
'aldryn_people',
'aldryn_reversion',
'djangocms_text_ckeditor',
'parler',
'sortedm2m',
'taggit',

# and you will probably find the following already listed:
'easy_thumbnails',
'filer',
'reversion',

`THUMBNAIL_PROCESSORS`¶

One of the dependencies is Django Filer. It provides a special feature that allows more sophisticated image cropping. For this to work it needs its own thumbnail processor (filer.thumbnail_processors.scale_and_crop_with_subject_location) to be listed in settings.py in place of easy_thumbnails.processors.scale_and_crop:

 THUMBNAIL_PROCESSORS = (
     'easy_thumbnails.processors.colorspace',
     'easy_thumbnails.processors.autocrop',
     # 'easy_thumbnails.processors.scale_and_crop',  # disable this one
     'filer.thumbnail_processors.scale_and_crop_with_subject_location',
     'easy_thumbnails.processors.filters',
 )

`ALDRYN_BOILERPLATE_NAME`¶

Aldryn News & Blog uses aldryn-boilerplates to provide multiple sets of templates and static files for different CSS frameworks. We’re using the Bootstrap 3 in this tutorial, so let’s choose bootstrap3 by adding the setting:

ALDRYN_BOILERPLATE_NAME='bootstrap3'

`STATICFILES_FINDERS`¶

Add the boilerplates static files finder to STATICFILES_FINDERS, immediately before django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.AppDirectoriesFinder:

 STATICFILES_FINDERS = [
     'django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.FileSystemFinder',
     'aldryn_boilerplates.staticfile_finders.AppDirectoriesFinder',
     'django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.AppDirectoriesFinder',
 ]

If STATICFILES_FINDERS is not defined in your settings.py just copy and paste the code above.

`TEMPLATES`¶

Important

In Django 1.8, the TEMPLATE_LOADERS and TEMPLATE_CONTEXT_PROCESSORS settings are rolled into the TEMPLATES setting. We’re assuming you’re using Django 1.8 here.

 TEMPLATES = [
     {
         # ...
         'OPTIONS': {
             'context_processors': [
                 # ...
                 'aldryn_boilerplates.context_processors.boilerplate',
                 ],
             'loaders': [
                 # ...
                 'aldryn_boilerplates.template_loaders.AppDirectoriesLoader',
                 ],
             },
         },
     ]

Migrate the database¶

We’ve added a new application so we need to update our database:

python manage.py migrate

Start the server again.

Create a new apphooked page¶

The News & Blog application comes with a django CMS apphook, so add a new django CMS page (call it News), and add the News & Blog application to it just as you did for Polls.

For this application we also need to create and select an Application configuration.

Give this application configuration some settings:

Instance namespace: news (this is used for reversing URLs)
Application title: News (the name that will represent the application configuration in the admin)
Permalink type: choose a format you prefer for news article URLs

Save this application configuration, and make sure it’s selected in Application configurations.

Publish the new page, and you should find the News & Blog application at work there. (Until you actually create any articles, it will simply inform you that there are No items available.)

Add new News & Blog articles¶

You can add new articles using the admin or the new News menu that now appears in the toolbar when you are on a page belonging to News & Blog.

You can also insert a Latest articles plugin into another page - like all good django CMS applications, Aldryn News & Blog comes with plugins.

If you want to install django CMS into an existing project, or prefer to configure django CMS by hand, rather than using the automated installer, see Installing django CMS by hand and then follow the rest of the tutorials.

Either way, you’ll be able to find support and help from the numerous friendly members of the django CMS community, either on our mailinglist or IRC channel #django-cms on the irc.freenode.net network.

If you don’t have an IRC client, you can join our IRC channel using the KiwiIRC web client, which works pretty well.

How-to guides¶

These guides presuppose some familiarity with django CMS. They cover some of the same territory as the Tutorials, but in more detail.

Installing django CMS by hand¶

This is how to install django CMS ‘the hard way’ (it’s not really that hard, but there is an easier way).

It’s suitable if you want to dive in to integrating django CMS into an existing project, are already experienced at setting up Django projects or indeed like to do things the hard way.

If you prefer an easier way using an automated configuration tool - definitely recommended for new users - see Installing django CMS, which is part of a complete introductory tutorial.

This document assumes you are familiar with Python and Django. After you’ve integrated django CMS into your project, you should be able to follow the Tutorials.

Requirements¶

Python 2.7, 3.3, 3.4 or 3.5.
Django 1.8.x, 1.9.x
django-classy-tags 0.7.0 or higher
django-treebeard 4.0
django-sekizai 0.8.2 or higher
djangocms-admin-style 1.0 or higher
An installed and working instance of one of the databases listed in the Databases section.

Note

When installing the django CMS using pip, all of the dependencies will be installed automatically.

Recommended¶

These packages are not required, but they provide useful functionality with minimal additional configuration and are well-proven.

Text Editors¶

Django CMS CKEditor for a WYSIWYG editor 2.8.1 or higher

Other Plugins¶

djangocms-link
djangocms-snippet
djangocms-style
djangocms-column
djangocms-grid
djangocms-oembed
djangocms-table

File and image handling¶

Django Filer for file and image management
django-filer plugins for django CMS, required to use Django Filer with django CMS
Pillow (fork of PIL) for image manipulation

Revision management¶

django-reversion 1.10 to support versions of your content

Note

As of django CMS 3.0.x, only the most recent 10 published revisions are saved. You can change this behaviour if required with CMS_MAX_PAGE_PUBLISH_REVERSIONS. Be aware that saved revisions will cause your database size to increase.

Installing¶

Installing in a virtualenv using pip¶

Installing inside a virtualenv is the preferred way to install any Django installation.

sudo pip install --upgrade virtualenv
virtualenv env

Note

If you are not using a system-wide install of Python (such as with Homebrew), omit the usage of sudo when installing via pip.

Switch to the virtualenv at the command line by typing:

source env/bin/activate

Next, install the CMS:

pip install django-cms

This will automatically install all of the requirements listed above.

While you could install packages one at a time using pip, we recommend using a requirements.txt file. The following is an example file that can be used with pip to install django CMS and its dependencies:

# Bare minimum
django-cms>=3.0

# These dependencies are brought in by django CMS, but if you want to
# lock-in their version, specify them
Django>=1.8

django-treebeard==3.0
django-sekizai==0.8.2
django-classy-tags==0.6.2
djangocms-admin-style==0.2.2
six==1.3.0

# Optional, recommended packages
Pillow>=2
django-filer==0.9.9
cmsplugin-filer==0.10.1
django-reversion==1.8.5

Note

In the above list, packages are pinned to specific version as an example; those are not mandatory versions; refer to requirements for any version-specific restrictions.

If you are using PostgreSQL as your database, add the Python adaptor to your requirements file:

psycopg2

For MySQL you would instead add:

mysql-python

Note

While the django CMS is compatible with Python 3.3+, the mysql-python package is not.

Before you install the Python adaptors for your chosen database, you will need to first install the appropriate headers and development libraries. See the platform specific notes below.

Installing on Ubuntu¶

If you’re using Ubuntu (tested with 14.04), the following should get you started:

sudo aptitude install python-pip
sudo pip install virtualenv

Next, install the appropriate libraries to build the Python adaptors for your selected database. For PostgreSQL:

sudo aptitude install libpq-dev postgresql-client-9.3 python-dev

For MySQL:

sudo aptitude install libmysqlclient-dev python-dev

Installing and configuring database servers are beyond the scope of this document. See Databases below for more information and related links.

Installing on Mac OSX¶

If you are using the system provided Python (2.7 or later), ensure you have pip installed.

sudo easy_install pip
sudo pip install virtualenv

If you’re using Homebrew you can install pip and virtualenv with the python generic package:

brew install python
pip install virtualenv

Next, install the appropriate libraries to build the Python adaptors for your selected database. For PostgreSQL:

brew install postgres

For MySQL:

brew install mysql

Note

Homebrew does not set the databases to run automatically. The software necessary for the Python adaptors will be installed but if you wish to run the database server locally, follow the Homebrew instructions shown in the terminal output after installing.

Databases¶

We recommend using PostgreSQL or MySQL with django CMS. Installing and maintaining database systems is outside the scope of this documentation, but is very well documented on the systems’ respective websites.

To use django CMS efficiently, we recommend:

Creating a separate set of credentials for the django CMS project.
Creating a new database for the django CMS project, not reusing an existing one.

Configuration and setup¶

Preparing the environment¶

The following steps assume your Django project will be - or already is - in ~/workspace/myproject, and that you’ll be using a virtualenv.

If you already have a virtualenv with a project in it, activate it and move on to Configuring your project for django CMS.

Otherwise:

cd ~/workspace/myproject/
virtualenv env
source env/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt

Create a new Django project¶

django-admin.py startproject myproject

If this is new to you, you ought to read the official Django tutorial, which covers starting a new project.

Configuring your project for django CMS¶

Open the settings.py file in your project.

To make your life easier, add the following at the top of the file:

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
import os
gettext = lambda s: s
BASE_DIR = os.path.dirname(os.path.dirname(__file__))

Add the following apps to your INSTALLED_APPS. This includes django CMS itself as well as its dependencies and other highly recommended applications/libraries:

'cms',  # django CMS itself
'treebeard',  # utilities for implementing a tree
'menus',  # helper for model independent hierarchical website navigation
'sekizai',  # for JavaScript and CSS management
'djangocms_admin_style',  # for the admin skin. You **must** add 'djangocms_admin_style' in the list **before** 'django.contrib.admin'.
'django.contrib.messages',  # to enable messages framework (see :ref:`Enable messages <enable-messages>`)

Also add any (or all) of the following plugins, depending on your needs (see the note in The INSTALLED_APPS setting about ordering):

'djangocms_file',
'djangocms_googlemap',
'djangocms_inherit',
'djangocms_picture',
'djangocms_teaser',
'djangocms_video',
'djangocms_link',
'djangocms_snippet',

Note

Most of the above plugins were previously distributed with django CMS, however, most of them are now located in their own repositories and renamed. Furthermore plugins: 'cms.plugins.text' and 'cms.plugins.twitter' have been removed from the django CMS bundle. Read 3.0 release notes for detailed information.

Warning

Adding the 'djangocms_snippet' plugin is a potential security hazard. For more information, refer to snippet_plugin.

Some commonly-used plugins are described in more detail in Some commonly-used plugins. There are even more plugins available on the django CMS extensions page.

In addition, make sure you uncomment (enable) 'django.contrib.admin'

You may also wish to use django-filer and its components with the django CMS plugin instead of the djangocms_file, djangocms_picture, djangocms_teaser and djangocms_video core plugins. In this case you should check the django-filer documentation and django CMS plugin documentation for detailed installation information, and then return to this tutorial.

If you opt for the core plugins you should take care that directory to which the CMS_PAGE_MEDIA_PATH setting points (by default cms_page_media/ relative to MEDIA_ROOT) is writeable by the user under which Django will be running. If you have opted for django-filer there is a similar requirement for its configuration.

If you want versioning of your content you should also install django-reversion and add it to INSTALLED_APPS:

'reversion'

You need to add the django CMS middlewares to your MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES at the right position:

MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES = (
    'cms.middleware.utils.ApphookReloadMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.sessions.middleware.SessionMiddleware',
    'django.middleware.csrf.CsrfViewMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.auth.middleware.AuthenticationMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.messages.middleware.MessageMiddleware',
    'django.middleware.locale.LocaleMiddleware',
    'django.middleware.common.CommonMiddleware',
    'cms.middleware.user.CurrentUserMiddleware',
    'cms.middleware.page.CurrentPageMiddleware',
    'cms.middleware.toolbar.ToolbarMiddleware',
    'cms.middleware.language.LanguageCookieMiddleware',
)

Notice that django CMS v3.2 introduces a new middleware: cms.middleware.utils.ApphookReloadMiddleware. This should be placed very near the top of your middleware classes tuple/list.

Note

In Django 1.8, the TEMPLATE_DIRS, TEMPLATE_LOADERS and TEMPLATE_CONTEXT_PROCESSORS settings are rolled into the TEMPLATES setting.

For earlier versions, put the context_processors and items listed into TEMPLATE_CONTEXT_PROCESSORS, the DIRS items into TEMPLATE_DIRS and so on.

 TEMPLATES = [
     {
         'DIRS': [os.path.join(BASE_DIR, "templates"),],
         'OPTIONS': {
             'context_processors': [
                 # ...
                 'sekizai.context_processors.sekizai',
                 'cms.context_processors.cms_settings',
                 ],
             },
         },
     ]

Warning

Be sure to have 'django.contrib.sites' in INSTALLED_APPS and set SITE_ID parameter in your settings: they may be missing from the settings file generated by django-admin depending on your Django version and project template.

Changed in version 3.0.0.

Warning

Django messages framework is now required for the toolbar to work properly.

To enable it you must be check the following settings:

INSTALLED_APPS: must contain 'django.contrib.messages'

MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES: must contain 'django.contrib.messages.middleware.MessageMiddleware'

TEMPLATES["OPTIONS"]["context_processors"]: must contain 'django.contrib.messages.context_processors.messages'

Point your STATIC_ROOT to where the static files should live (that is, your images, CSS files, JavaScript files, etc.):

STATIC_ROOT = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, "static")
STATIC_URL = "/static/"

For uploaded files, you will need to set up the MEDIA_ROOT setting:

MEDIA_ROOT = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, "media")
MEDIA_URL = "/media/"

Note

Please make sure both the static and media sub-folders exist in your project and are writeable.

Add at least one template to CMS_TEMPLATES; for example:

CMS_TEMPLATES = (
    ('template_1.html', 'Template One'),
    ('template_2.html', 'Template Two'),
)

We will create the actual template files at a later step, don’t worry about it for now. Simply paste this code into your settings file.

Note

The templates you define in CMS_TEMPLATES have to exist at runtime and contain at least one {% placeholder <name> %} template tag to be useful for django CMS.

The django CMS allows you to edit all languages for which Django has built in translations. Since these are numerous, we’ll limit it to English for now:

LANGUAGES = [
    ('en', 'English'),
]

Finally, set up the DATABASES part of the file to reflect your database deployment. If you just want to try out things locally, SQLite3 is the easiest database to set up, however it should not be used in production. If you still wish to use it for now, this is what your DATABASES setting should look like:

DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.sqlite3',
        'NAME': os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'database.sqlite'),
    }
}

django CMS, as well as its plugins, supports both Django 1.7 and Django 1.6 migrations.

URL configuration¶

You need to include the 'cms.urls' urlpatterns at the end of your urlpatterns. We suggest starting with the following ~/workspace/myproject/myproject/urls.py:

from django.conf import settings
from django.conf.urls import include, url
from django.conf.urls.i18n import i18n_patterns
from django.conf.urls.static import static
from django.contrib import admin

urlpatterns = i18n_patterns('',
    url(r'^admin/', include(admin.site.urls)),
    url(r'^', include('cms.urls')),
) + static(settings.MEDIA_URL, document_root=settings.MEDIA_ROOT)

Creating templates¶

django CMS uses templates to define how a page should look and what parts of it are editable. Editable areas are called placeholders. These templates are standard Django templates and you may use them as described in the official documentation.

Templates you wish to use on your pages must be declared in the CMS_TEMPLATES setting:

CMS_TEMPLATES = (
    ('template_1.html', 'Template One'),
    ('template_2.html', 'Template Two'),
)

If you have followed this tutorial from the beginning, this code should already be in your settings file.

Now, on with the actual template files!

Fire up your favourite editor and create a file called base.html in a folder called templates in your myproject directory.

Here is a simple example for a base template called base.html:

{% load cms_tags sekizai_tags %}
<html>
  <head>
      <title>{% page_attribute "page_title" %}</title>
      {% render_block "css" %}
  </head>
  <body>
      {% cms_toolbar %}
      {% placeholder base_content %}
      {% block base_content %}{% endblock %}
      {% render_block "js" %}
  </body>
</html>

Now, create a file called template_1.html in the same directory. This will use your base template, and add extra content to it:

{% extends "base.html" %}
{% load cms_tags %}

{% block base_content %}
  {% placeholder template_1_content %}
{% endblock %}

When you set template_1.html as a template on a page you will get two placeholders to put plugins in. One is template_1_content from the page template template_1.html and another is base_content from the extended base.html.

When working with a lot of placeholders, make sure to give descriptive names to your placeholders so you can identify them more easily in the admin panel.

Now, feel free to experiment and make a template_2.html file! If you don’t feel creative, just copy template_1 and name the second placeholder something like “template_2_content”.

Static files handling with sekizai¶

The django CMS handles media files (CSS stylesheets and JavaScript files) required by CMS plugins using django-sekizai. This requires you to define at least two sekizai namespaces in your templates: js and css. You can do so using the render_block template tag from the sekizai_tags template tag library. We highly recommended putting the {% render_block "css" %} tag as the last thing before the closing </head> HTML tag and the {% render_block "js" %} tag as the last thing before the closing </body> HTML tag.

Initial database setup¶

django CMS uses Django’s built-in support for database migrations to manage creating and altering database tables.

Fresh install¶

Run:

python manage.py migrate
python manage.py createsuperuser

Upgrade¶

If you are upgrading your installation of django CMS from a previous version run:

python manage.py migrate

Check you did everything right¶

Now, use the following command to check if you did everything correctly:

python manage.py cms check

Up and running!¶

That should be it. Restart your development server using python manage.py runserver and point a web browser to 127.0.0.1:8000 : you should get the django CMS “Installation Successful” screen.

it-works-cms

Use the new side-frame-based administration by appending ‘?edit’ to your URL as follows: http://127.0.0.1:8000/?edit. This will reveal a login form.

login-form

Log in with the user you created during the database setup.

If this is your first django CMS project, read through the tutorial for a walk-through of the main features of django CMS.

For more information on using django CMS for managing web content, see Using django CMS.

To deploy your django CMS project on a production web server, please refer to the Django documentation.

Custom Plugins¶

CMS Plugins are reusable content publishers that can be inserted into django CMS pages (or indeed into any content that uses django CMS placeholders). They enable the publishing of information automatically, without further intervention.

This means that your published web content, whatever it is, is kept up-to-date at all times.

It’s like magic, but quicker.

Unless you’re lucky enough to discover that your needs can be met by the built-in plugins, or by the many available third-party plugins, you’ll have to write your own custom CMS Plugin. Don’t worry though - writing a CMS Plugin is rather simple.

Why would you need to write a plugin?¶

A plugin is the most convenient way to integrate content from another Django app into a django CMS page.

For example, suppose you’re developing a site for a record company in django CMS. You might like to have a “Latest releases” box on your site’s home page.

Of course, you could every so often edit that page and update the information. However, a sensible record company will manage its catalogue in Django too, which means Django already knows what this week’s new releases are.

This is an excellent opportunity to make use of that information to make your life easier - all you need to do is create a django CMS plugin that you can insert into your home page, and leave it to do the work of publishing information about the latest releases for you.

Plugins are reusable. Perhaps your record company is producing a series of reissues of seminal Swiss punk records; on your site’s page about the series, you could insert the same plugin, configured a little differently, that will publish information about recent new releases in that series.

Overview¶

A django CMS plugin is fundamentally composed of three things.

a plugin editor, to configure a plugin each time it is deployed
a plugin publisher, to do the automated work of deciding what to publish
a plugin template, to render the information into a web page

These correspond to the familiar Model-View-Template scheme:

the plugin model to store its configuration
the plugin view that works out what needs to be displayed
the plugin template to render the information

And so to build your plugin, you’ll make it from:

a sub-class of cms.models.CMSPlugin to store the configuration for your plugin instances
a sub-class of cms.plugin_base.CMSPluginBase that defines the operating logic of your plugin
a template that renders your plugin

A note about `cms.plugin_base.CMSPluginBase`¶

cms.plugin_base.CMSPluginBase is actually a sub-class of django.contrib.admin.ModelAdmin.

Because CMSPluginBase sub-classes ModelAdmin several important ModelAdmin options are also available to CMS plugin developers. These options are often used:

exclude
fields
fieldsets
form
formfield_overrides
inlines
radio_fields
raw_id_fields
readonly_fields

Please note, however, that not all ModelAdmin options are effective in a CMS plugin. In particular, any options that are used exclusively by the ModelAdmin‘s changelist will have no effect. These and other notable options that are ignored by the CMS are:

actions
actions_on_top
actions_on_bottom
actions_selection_counter
date_hierarchy
list_display
list_display_links
list_editable
list_filter
list_max_show_all
list_per_page
ordering
paginator
preserve_fields
save_as
save_on_top
search_fields
show_full_result_count
view_on_site

An aside on models and configuration¶

The plugin model, the sub-class of cms.models.CMSPlugin, is actually optional.

You could have a plugin that doesn’t need to be configured, because it only ever does one thing.

For example, you could have a plugin that only publishes information about the top-selling record of the past seven days. Obviously, this wouldn’t be very flexible - you wouldn’t be able to use the same plugin for the best-selling release of the last month instead.

Usually, you find that it is useful to be able to configure your plugin, and this will require a model.

The simplest plugin¶

You may use python manage.py startapp to set up the basic layout for you plugin app (remember to add your plugin to INSTALLED_APPS). Alternatively, just add a file called cms_plugins.py to an existing Django application.

In cms_plugins.py, you place your plugins. For our example, include the following code:

from cms.plugin_base import CMSPluginBase
from cms.plugin_pool import plugin_pool
from cms.models.pluginmodel import CMSPlugin
from django.utils.translation import ugettext_lazy as _

class HelloPlugin(CMSPluginBase):
    model = CMSPlugin
    render_template = "hello_plugin.html"
    cache = False

plugin_pool.register_plugin(HelloPlugin)

Now we’re almost done. All that’s left is to add the template. Add the following into the root template directory in a file called hello_plugin.html:

<h1>Hello {% if request.user.is_authenticated %}{{ request.user.first_name }} {{ request.user.last_name}}{% else %}Guest{% endif %}</h1>

This plugin will now greet the users on your website either by their name if they’re logged in, or as Guest if they’re not.

Now let’s take a closer look at what we did there. The cms_plugins.py files are where you should define your sub-classes of cms.plugin_base.CMSPluginBase, these classes define the different plugins.

There are two required attributes on those classes:

model: The model you wish to use for storing information about this plugin. If you do not require any special information, for example configuration, to be stored for your plugins, you can simply use cms.models.CMSPlugin (we’ll look at that model more closely in a bit). In a normal admin class, you don’t need to supply this information because admin.site.register(Model, Admin) takes care of it, but a plugin is not registered in that way.
name: The name of your plugin as displayed in the admin. It is generally good practice to mark this string as translatable using django.utils.translation.ugettext_lazy(), however this is optional. By default the name is a nicer version of the class name.

And one of the following must be defined if render_plugin attribute is True (the default):

render_template: The template to render this plugin with.

or

get_render_template: A method that returns a template path to render the plugin with.

In addition to those attributes, you can also override the render() method which determines the template context variables that are used to render your plugin. By default, this method only adds instance and placeholder objects to your context, but plugins can override this to include any context that is required.

A number of other methods are available for overriding on your CMSPluginBase sub-classes. See: CMSPluginBase for further details.

Troubleshooting¶

Since plugin modules are found and loaded by django’s importlib, you might experience errors because the path environment is different at runtime. If your cms_plugins isn’t loaded or accessible, try the following:

$ python manage.py shell
>>> from importlib import import_module
>>> m = import_module("myapp.cms_plugins")
>>> m.some_test_function()

Storing configuration¶

In many cases, you want to store configuration for your plugin instances. For example, if you have a plugin that shows the latest blog posts, you might want to be able to choose the amount of entries shown. Another example would be a gallery plugin where you want to choose the pictures to show for the plugin.

To do so, you create a Django model by sub-classing cms.models.CMSPlugin in the models.py of an installed application.

Let’s improve our HelloPlugin from above by making its fallback name for non-authenticated users configurable.

In our models.py we add the following:

from cms.models.pluginmodel import CMSPlugin

from django.db import models

class Hello(CMSPlugin):
    guest_name = models.CharField(max_length=50, default='Guest')

If you followed the Django tutorial, this shouldn’t look too new to you. The only difference to normal models is that you sub-class cms.models.CMSPlugin rather than django.db.models.Model.

Now we need to change our plugin definition to use this model, so our new cms_plugins.py looks like this:

from cms.plugin_base import CMSPluginBase
from cms.plugin_pool import plugin_pool
from django.utils.translation import ugettext_lazy as _

from .models import Hello

class HelloPlugin(CMSPluginBase):
    model = Hello
    name = _("Hello Plugin")
    render_template = "hello_plugin.html"
    cache = False

    def render(self, context, instance, placeholder):
        context = super(HelloPlugin, self).render(context, instance, placeholder)
        return context

plugin_pool.register_plugin(HelloPlugin)

We changed the model attribute to point to our newly created Hello model and pass the model instance to the context.

Remember to run python manage.py makemigrations and then python manage.py migrate to apply changes to our database.

As a last step, we have to update our template to make use of this new configuration:

<h1>Hello {% if request.user.is_authenticated %}
  {{ request.user.first_name }} {{ request.user.last_name}}
{% else %}
  {{ instance.guest_name }}
{% endif %}</h1>

The only thing we changed there is that we use the template variable {{ instance.guest_name }} instead of the hard-coded Guest string in the else clause.

Warning

You cannot name your model fields the same as any installed plugins lower- cased model name, due to the implicit one-to-one relation Django uses for sub-classed models. If you use all core plugins, this includes: file, googlemap, link, picture, snippetptr, teaser, twittersearch, twitterrecententries and video.

In cms.models.CMSPlugin, don’t use page as a model field. page is already a property of cms.models.CMSPlugin, and a plugin that overrides this will not work as intended in the administration.

Warning

If you are using Python 2.x and overriding the __unicode__ method of the model file, make sure to return its results as UTF8-string. Otherwise saving an instance of your plugin might fail with the frontend editor showing an <Empty> plugin instance. To return in Unicode use a return statement like return u'{0}'.format(self.guest_name).

Handling Relations¶

Every time the page with your custom plugin is published the plugin is copied. So if your custom plugin has foreign key (to it, or from it) or many-to-many relations you are responsible for copying those related objects, if required, whenever the CMS copies the plugin - it won’t do it for you automatically.

Every plugin model inherits the empty cms.models.CMSPlugin.copy_relations() method from the base class, and it’s called when your plugin is copied. So, it’s there for you to adapt to your purposes as required.

Typically, you will want it to copy related objects. To do this you should create a method called copy_relations on your plugin model, that receives the old instance of the plugin as an argument.

You may however decide that the related objects shouldn’t be copied - you may want to leave them alone, for example. Or, you might even want to choose some altogether different relations for it, or to create new ones when it’s copied... it depends on your plugin and the way you want it to work.

If you do want to copy related objects, you’ll need to do this in two slightly different ways, depending on whether your plugin has relations to or from other objects that need to be copied too:

For foreign key relations from other objects¶

Your plugin may have items with foreign keys to it, which will typically be the case if you set it up so that they are inlines in its admin. So you might have two models, one for the plugin and one for those items:

class ArticlePluginModel(CMSPlugin):
    title = models.CharField(max_length=50)

class AssociatedItem(models.Model):
    plugin = models.ForeignKey(
        ArticlePluginModel,
        related_name="associated_item"
    )

You’ll then need the copy_relations() method on your plugin model to loop over the associated items and copy them, giving the copies foreign keys to the new plugin:

class ArticlePluginModel(CMSPlugin):
    title = models.CharField(max_length=50)

    def copy_relations(self, oldinstance):
        for associated_item in oldinstance.associated_item.all():
            # instance.pk = None; instance.pk.save() is the slightly odd but
            # standard Django way of copying a saved model instance
            associated_item.pk = None
            associated_item.plugin = self
            associated_item.save()

For many-to-many or foreign key relations to other objects¶

Let’s assume these are the relevant bits of your plugin:

class ArticlePluginModel(CMSPlugin):
    title = models.CharField(max_length=50)
    sections = models.ManyToManyField(Section)

Now when the plugin gets copied, you want to make sure the sections stay, so it becomes:

class ArticlePluginModel(CMSPlugin):
    title = models.CharField(max_length=50)
    sections = models.ManyToManyField(Section)

    def copy_relations(self, oldinstance):
        self.sections = oldinstance.sections.all()

If your plugins have relational fields of both kinds, you may of course need to use both the copying techniques described above.

Relations between plugins¶

It is much harder to manage the copying of relations when they are from one plugin to another.

See the GitHub issue copy_relations() does not work for relations between cmsplugins #4143 for more details.

Advanced¶

Inline Admin¶

If you want to have the foreign key relation as a inline admin, you can create an admin.StackedInline class and put it in the Plugin to “inlines”. Then you can use the inline admin form for your foreign key references:

class ItemInlineAdmin(admin.StackedInline):
    model = AssociatedItem


class ArticlePlugin(CMSPluginBase):
    model = ArticlePluginModel
    name = _("Article Plugin")
    render_template = "article/index.html"
    inlines = (ItemInlineAdmin,)

    def render(self, context, instance, placeholder):
        context = super(ArticlePlugin, self).render(context, instance, placeholder)
        items = instance.associated_item.all()
        context.update({
            'items': items,
        })
        return context

Plugin form¶

Since cms.plugin_base.CMSPluginBase extends django.contrib.admin.ModelAdmin, you can customise the form for your plugins just as you would customise your admin interfaces.

The template that the plugin editing mechanism uses is cms/templates/admin/cms/page/plugin/change_form.html. You might need to change this.

If you want to customise this the best way to do it is:

create a template of your own that extends cms/templates/admin/cms/page/plugin/change_form.html to provide the functionality you require;
provide your cms.plugin_base.CMSPluginBase sub-class with a change_form_template attribute pointing at your new template.

Extending admin/cms/page/plugin/change_form.html ensures that you’ll keep a unified look and functionality across your plugins.

There are various reasons why you might want to do this. For example, you might have a snippet of JavaScript that needs to refer to a template variable), which you’d likely place in {% block extrahead %}, after a {{ block.super }} to inherit the existing items that were in the parent template.

Or: cms/templates/admin/cms/page/plugin/change_form.html extends Django’s own admin/base_site.html, which loads a rather elderly version of jQuery, and your plugin admin might require something newer. In this case, in your custom change_form_template you could do something like:

{% block jquery %}
    <script type="text/javascript" src="///ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.8.0/jquery.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
{% endblock jquery %}``

to override the {% block jquery %}.

Handling media¶

If your plugin depends on certain media files, JavaScript or stylesheets, you can include them from your plugin template using django-sekizai. Your CMS templates are always enforced to have the css and js sekizai namespaces, therefore those should be used to include the respective files. For more information about django-sekizai, please refer to the django-sekizai documentation.

Note that sekizai can’t help you with the admin-side plugin templates - what follows is for your plugins’ output templates.

Sekizai style¶

To fully harness the power of django-sekizai, it is helpful to have a consistent style on how to use it. Here is a set of conventions that should be followed (but don’t necessarily need to be):

One bit per addtoblock. Always include one external CSS or JS file per addtoblock or one snippet per addtoblock. This is needed so django-sekizai properly detects duplicate files.
External files should be on one line, with no spaces or newlines between the addtoblock tag and the HTML tags.
When using embedded javascript or CSS, the HTML tags should be on a newline.

A good example:

{% load sekizai_tags %}

{% addtoblock "js" %}<script type="text/javascript" src="{{ MEDIA_URL }}myplugin/js/myjsfile.js"></script>{% endaddtoblock %}
{% addtoblock "js" %}<script type="text/javascript" src="{{ MEDIA_URL }}myplugin/js/myotherfile.js"></script>{% endaddtoblock %}
{% addtoblock "css" %}<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="{{ MEDIA_URL }}myplugin/css/astylesheet.css">{% endaddtoblock %}
{% addtoblock "js" %}
<script type="text/javascript">
    $(document).ready(function(){
        doSomething();
    });
</script>
{% endaddtoblock %}

A bad example:

{% load sekizai_tags %}

{% addtoblock "js" %}<script type="text/javascript" src="{{ MEDIA_URL }}myplugin/js/myjsfile.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="{{ MEDIA_URL }}myplugin/js/myotherfile.js"></script>{% endaddtoblock %}
{% addtoblock "css" %}
    <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="{{ MEDIA_URL }}myplugin/css/astylesheet.css"></script>
{% endaddtoblock %}
{% addtoblock "js" %}<script type="text/javascript">
    $(document).ready(function(){
        doSomething();
    });
</script>{% endaddtoblock %}

Plugin Context¶

The plugin has access to the django template context. You can override variables using the with tag.

Example:

{% with 320 as width %}{% placeholder "content" %}{% endwith %}

Plugin Context Processors¶

Plugin context processors are callables that modify all plugins’ context before rendering. They are enabled using the CMS_PLUGIN_CONTEXT_PROCESSORS setting.

A plugin context processor takes 3 arguments:

instance: The instance of the plugin model
placeholder: The instance of the placeholder this plugin appears in.
context: The context that is in use, including the request.

The return value should be a dictionary containing any variables to be added to the context.

Example:

def add_verbose_name(instance, placeholder, context):
    '''
    This plugin context processor adds the plugin model's verbose_name to context.
    '''
    return {'verbose_name': instance._meta.verbose_name}

Plugin Processors¶

Plugin processors are callables that modify all plugins’ output after rendering. They are enabled using the CMS_PLUGIN_PROCESSORS setting.

A plugin processor takes 4 arguments:

instance: The instance of the plugin model
placeholder: The instance of the placeholder this plugin appears in.
rendered_content: A string containing the rendered content of the plugin.
original_context: The original context for the template used to render the plugin.

Note

Plugin processors are also applied to plugins embedded in Text plugins (and any custom plugin allowing nested plugins). Depending on what your processor does, this might break the output. For example, if your processor wraps the output in a div tag, you might end up having div tags inside of p tags, which is invalid. You can prevent such cases by returning rendered_content unchanged if instance._render_meta.text_enabled is True, which is the case when rendering an embedded plugin.

Example¶

Suppose you want to wrap each plugin in the main placeholder in a colored box but it would be too complicated to edit each individual plugin’s template:

In your settings.py:

CMS_PLUGIN_PROCESSORS = (
    'yourapp.cms_plugin_processors.wrap_in_colored_box',
)

In your yourapp.cms_plugin_processors.py:

def wrap_in_colored_box(instance, placeholder, rendered_content, original_context):
    '''
    This plugin processor wraps each plugin's output in a colored box if it is in the "main" placeholder.
    '''
    # Plugins not in the main placeholder should remain unchanged
    # Plugins embedded in Text should remain unchanged in order not to break output
    if placeholder.slot != 'main' or (instance._render_meta.text_enabled and instance.parent):
        return rendered_content
    else:
        from django.template import Context, Template
        # For simplicity's sake, construct the template from a string:
        t = Template('<div style="border: 10px {{ border_color }} solid; background: {{ background_color }};">{{ content|safe }}</div>')
        # Prepare that template's context:
        c = Context({
            'content': rendered_content,
            # Some plugin models might allow you to customise the colors,
            # for others, use default colors:
            'background_color': instance.background_color if hasattr(instance, 'background_color') else 'lightyellow',
            'border_color': instance.border_color if hasattr(instance, 'border_color') else 'lightblue',
        })
        # Finally, render the content through that template, and return the output
        return t.render(c)

Nested Plugins¶

You can nest CMS Plugins in themselves. There’s a few things required to achieve this functionality:

models.py:

class ParentPlugin(CMSPlugin):
    # add your fields here

class ChildPlugin(CMSPlugin):
    # add your fields here

cms_plugins.py:

from .models import ParentPlugin, ChildPlugin

class ParentCMSPlugin(CMSPluginBase):
    render_template = 'parent.html'
    name = 'Parent'
    model = ParentPlugin
    allow_children = True  # This enables the parent plugin to accept child plugins
    # You can also specify a list of plugins that are accepted as children,
    # or leave it away completely to accept all
    # child_classes = ['ChildCMSPlugin']

    def render(self, context, instance, placeholder):
        context = super(ParentCMSPlugin, self).render(context, instance, placeholder)
        return context

plugin_pool.register_plugin(ParentCMSPlugin)


class ChildCMSPlugin(CMSPluginBase):
    render_template = 'child.html'
    name = 'Child'
    model = ChildPlugin
    require_parent = True  # Is it required that this plugin is a child of another plugin?
    # You can also specify a list of plugins that are accepted as parents,
    # or leave it away completely to accept all
    # parent_classes = ['ParentCMSPlugin']

    def render(self, context, instance, placeholder):
        context = super(ChildCMSPlugin, self).render(context, instance, placeholder)
        return context

plugin_pool.register_plugin(ChildCMSPlugin)

parent.html:

{% load cms_tags %}

<div class="plugin parent">
    {% for plugin in instance.child_plugin_instances %}
        {% render_plugin plugin %}
    {% endfor %}
</div>

child.html:

<div class="plugin child">
    {{ instance }}
</div>

Extending context menus of placeholders or plugins¶

There are three possibilities to extend the context menus of placeholders or plugins.

You can either extend a placeholder context menu.
You can extend all plugin context menus.
You can extend the current plugin context menu.

For this purpose you can overwrite 3 methods on CMSPluginBase.

Example:

class AliasPlugin(CMSPluginBase):
    name = _("Alias")
    allow_children = False
    model = AliasPluginModel
    render_template = "cms/plugins/alias.html"

    def render(self, context, instance, placeholder):
        context = super(AliasPlugin, self).render(context, instance, placeholder)
        if instance.plugin_id:
            plugins = instance.plugin.get_descendants(include_self=True).order_by('placeholder', 'tree_id', 'level',
                                                                                  'position')
            plugins = downcast_plugins(plugins)
            plugins[0].parent_id = None
            plugins = build_plugin_tree(plugins)
            context['plugins'] = plugins
        if instance.alias_placeholder_id:
            content = render_placeholder(instance.alias_placeholder, context)
            print content
            context['content'] = mark_safe(content)
        return context

    def get_extra_global_plugin_menu_items(self, request, plugin):
        return [
            PluginMenuItem(
                _("Create Alias"),
                reverse("admin:cms_create_alias"),
                data={'plugin_id': plugin.pk, 'csrfmiddlewaretoken': get_token(request)},
            )
        ]

    def get_extra_placeholder_menu_items(self, request, placeholder):
        return [
            PluginMenuItem(
                _("Create Alias"),
                reverse("admin:cms_create_alias"),
                data={'placeholder_id': placeholder.pk, 'csrfmiddlewaretoken': get_token(request)},
            )
        ]

    def get_plugin_urls(self):
        urlpatterns = [
            url(r'^create_alias/$', self.create_alias, name='cms_create_alias'),
        ]
        return urlpatterns

    def create_alias(self, request):
        if not request.user.is_staff:
            return HttpResponseForbidden("not enough privileges")
        if not 'plugin_id' in request.POST and not 'placeholder_id' in request.POST:
            return HttpResponseBadRequest("plugin_id or placeholder_id POST parameter missing.")
        plugin = None
        placeholder = None
        if 'plugin_id' in request.POST:
            pk = request.POST['plugin_id']
            try:
                plugin = CMSPlugin.objects.get(pk=pk)
            except CMSPlugin.DoesNotExist:
                return HttpResponseBadRequest("plugin with id %s not found." % pk)
        if 'placeholder_id' in request.POST:
            pk = request.POST['placeholder_id']
            try:
                placeholder = Placeholder.objects.get(pk=pk)
            except Placeholder.DoesNotExist:
                return HttpResponseBadRequest("placeholder with id %s not found." % pk)
            if not placeholder.has_change_permission(request):
                return HttpResponseBadRequest("You do not have enough permission to alias this placeholder.")
        clipboard = request.toolbar.clipboard
        clipboard.cmsplugin_set.all().delete()
        language = request.LANGUAGE_CODE
        if plugin:
            language = plugin.language
        alias = AliasPluginModel(language=language, placeholder=clipboard, plugin_type="AliasPlugin")
        if plugin:
            alias.plugin = plugin
        if placeholder:
            alias.alias_placeholder = placeholder
        alias.save()
        return HttpResponse("ok")

Customising navigation menus¶

In this document we discuss three different way of customising the navigation menus of django CMS sites.

Menus: Statically extend the menu entries
Attach Menus: Attach your menu to a page.
Navigation Modifiers: Modify the whole menu tree

Menus¶

Create a cms_menus.py in your application, with the following:

from menus.base import Menu, NavigationNode
from menus.menu_pool import menu_pool
from django.utils.translation import ugettext_lazy as _

class TestMenu(Menu):

    def get_nodes(self, request):
        nodes = []
        n = NavigationNode(_('sample root page'), "/", 1)
        n2 = NavigationNode(_('sample settings page'), "/bye/", 2)
        n3 = NavigationNode(_('sample account page'), "/hello/", 3)
        n4 = NavigationNode(_('sample my profile page'), "/hello/world/", 4, 3)
        nodes.append(n)
        nodes.append(n2)
        nodes.append(n3)
        nodes.append(n4)
        return nodes

menu_pool.register_menu(TestMenu)

Note

Up to version 3.1 this module was named menu.py. Please update your existing modules to the new naming convention. Support for the old name will be removed in version 3.4.

If you refresh a page you should now see the menu entries above. The get_nodes function should return a list of NavigationNode instances. A menus.base.NavigationNode takes the following arguments:

title: Text for the menu node
url: URL for the menu node link
id: A unique id for this menu
parent_id=None: If this is a child of another node, supply the id of the parent here.
parent_namespace=None: If the parent node is not from this menu you can give it the parent namespace. The namespace is the name of the class. In the above example that would be: TestMenu
attr=None: A dictionary of additional attributes you may want to use in a modifier or in the template
visible=True: Whether or not this menu item should be visible

Additionally, each menus.base.NavigationNode provides a number of methods which are detailed in the NavigationNode API references.

Customise menus at runtime¶

To adapt your menus according to request dependent conditions (say: anonymous/logged in user), you can use Navigation Modifiers or you can make use of existing ones.

For example it’s possible to add {'visible_for_anonymous': False}/{'visible_for_authenticated': False} attributes recognised by the django CMS core AuthVisibility modifier.

Complete example:

class UserMenu(Menu):
    def get_nodes(self, request):
        return [
            NavigationNode(_("Profile"), reverse(profile), 1, attr={'visible_for_anonymous': False}),
            NavigationNode(_("Log in"), reverse(login), 3, attr={'visible_for_authenticated': False}),
            NavigationNode(_("Sign up"), reverse(logout), 4, attr={'visible_for_authenticated': False}),
            NavigationNode(_("Log out"), reverse(logout), 2, attr={'visible_for_anonymous': False}),
        ]

Attach Menus¶

Classes that extend from menus.base.Menu always get attached to the root. But if you want the menu to be attached to a CMS Page you can do that as well.

Instead of extending from Menu you need to extend from cms.menu_bases.CMSAttachMenu and you need to define a name.

We will do that with the example from above:

from menus.base import NavigationNode
from menus.menu_pool import menu_pool
from django.utils.translation import ugettext_lazy as _
from cms.menu_bases import CMSAttachMenu

class TestMenu(CMSAttachMenu):

    name = _("test menu")

    def get_nodes(self, request):
        nodes = []
        n = NavigationNode(_('sample root page'), "/", 1)
        n2 = NavigationNode(_('sample settings page'), "/bye/", 2)
        n3 = NavigationNode(_('sample account page'), "/hello/", 3)
        n4 = NavigationNode(_('sample my profile page'), "/hello/world/", 4, 3)
        nodes.append(n)
        nodes.append(n2)
        nodes.append(n3)
        nodes.append(n4)
        return nodes

menu_pool.register_menu(TestMenu)

Now you can link this Menu to a page in the Advanced tab of the page settings under attached menu.

Navigation Modifiers¶

Navigation Modifiers give your application access to navigation menus.

A modifier can change the properties of existing nodes or rearrange entire menus.

Example use-cases¶

A simple example: you have a news application that publishes pages independently of django CMS. However, you would like to integrate the application into the menu structure of your site, so that at appropriate places a News node appears in the navigation menu.

In another example, you might want a particular attribute of your Pages to be available in menu templates. In order to keep menu nodes lightweight (which can be important in a site with thousands of pages) they only contain the minimum attributes required to generate a usable menu.

In both cases, a Navigation Modifier is the solution - in the first case, to add a new node at the appropriate place, and in the second, to add a new attribute - on the attr attribute, rather than directly on the NavigationNode, to help avoid conflicts - to all nodes in the menu.

How it works¶

Place your modifiers in your application’s cms_menus.py.

To make your modifier available, it then needs to be registered with menus.menu_pool.menu_pool.

Now, when a page is loaded and the menu generated, your modifier will be able to inspect and modify its nodes.

Here is an example of a simple modifier that places a Page’s attribute in the corresponding NavigationNode:

from menus.base import Modifier
from menus.menu_pool import menu_pool

from cms.models import Page

class MyMode(Modifier):
    """

    """
    def modify(self, request, nodes, namespace, root_id, post_cut, breadcrumb):
        # if the menu is not yet cut, don't do anything
        if post_cut:
            return nodes
        # otherwise loop over the nodes
        for node in nodes:
            # does this node represent a Page?
            if node.attr["is_page"]:
                # if so, put its changed_by attribute on the node
                node.attr["changed_by"] = Page.objects.get(id=node.id).changed_by
        return nodes

menu_pool.register_modifier(MyMode)

It has a method modify() that should return a list of NavigationNode instances. modify() should take the following arguments:

request: A Django request instance. You want to modify based on sessions, or user or permissions?
nodes: All the nodes. Normally you want to return them again.
namespace: A Menu Namespace. Only given if somebody requested a menu with only nodes from this namespace.
root_id: Was a menu request based on an ID?
post_cut: Every modifier is called two times. First on the whole tree. After that the tree gets cut to only show the nodes that are shown in the current menu. After the cut the modifiers are called again with the final tree. If this is the case post_cut is True.
breadcrumb: Is this breadcrumb call rather than a menu call?

Here is an example of a built-in modifier that marks all node levels:

class Level(Modifier):
    """
    marks all node levels
    """
    post_cut = True

    def modify(self, request, nodes, namespace, root_id, post_cut, breadcrumb):
        if breadcrumb:
            return nodes
        for node in nodes:
            if not node.parent:
                if post_cut:
                    node.menu_level = 0
                else:
                    node.level = 0
                self.mark_levels(node, post_cut)
        return nodes

    def mark_levels(self, node, post_cut):
        for child in node.children:
            if post_cut:
                child.menu_level = node.menu_level + 1
            else:
                child.level = node.level + 1
            self.mark_levels(child, post_cut)

menu_pool.register_modifier(Level)

Apphooks¶

An apphook allows you to attach a Django application to a page. For example, you might have a news application that you’d like integrated with django CMS. In this case, you can create a normal django CMS page without any content of its own, and attach the news application to the page; the news application’s content will be delivered at the page’s URL.

All URLs in that URL path will be passed to the attached application’s URL configs.

The Tutorials section contains a basic guide to getting started with apphooks. This document assumes more familiarity with the CMS generally.

The basics of apphook creation¶

To create an apphook, create a cms_apps.py file in your application.

Note

Up to version 3.1 this module was named cms_app.py - please update your existing modules to the new naming convention. Support for the old name will be removed in version 3.4.

The file needs to contain a CMSApp sub-class. For example:

from cms.app_base import CMSApp
from cms.apphook_pool import apphook_pool
from django.utils.translation import ugettext_lazy as _

class MyApphook(CMSApp):
    name = _("My Apphook")

    def get_urls(self, page=None, language=None, **kwargs):
        return ["myapp.urls"]       # replace this with the path to your application's URLs module

apphook_pool.register(MyApphook)

Changed in version 3.3: CMSApp.get_urls() replaces CMSApp.urls. urls is now deprecated and will be removed in version 3.5.

Apphooks for namespaced applications¶

Does your application use namespaced URLs? This is good practice, so it should!

In that case you will need to ensure that your apphooks include its URLs in the right namespace. Add an app_name attribute to the class that reflects the way you’d include the applications’ URLs into your project.

For example, if your application requires that your project’s URLs do:

url(r'^myapp/', include('myapp.urls', app_name='myapp')),

then your MyApphook class should include:

app_name = "myapp"

If you fail to this, then any templates in the application that invoke URLs using the form {% url 'myapp:index' %} or views that call (for example) reverse('myapp:index') will throw a NoReverseMatch error.

Unless the class that defines the apphook specifies an app_name, it can be attached only to one page at a time. Attempting to apply it a second times will cause an error. See Attaching an application multiple times for more on having multiple apphook instances.

Loading new and re-configured apphooks¶

Certain apphook-related changes require server restarts in order to be loaded.

Whenever you:

add or remove an apphook
change the slug of a page containing an apphook or the slug of a page which has a descendant with an apphook

the URL caches must be reloaded.

If you have the cms.middleware.utils.ApphookReloadMiddleware installed, which is recommended, the server will do it for your by re-initialising the URL patterns automatically.

Otherwise, you will need to restart it manually.

Using an apphook¶

Once your apphook has been set up and loaded, you’ll now be able to select the Application that’s hooked into that page from its Advanced settings.

Note

An apphook won’t actually do anything until the page it belongs to is published. Take note that this also means all parent pages must also be published.

The apphook attaches all of the apphooked application’s URLs to the page; its root URL will be the page’s own URL, and any lower-level URLs will be on the same URL path.

So, given an application with the urls.py:

from django.conf.urls import *

urlpatterns = patterns('sampleapp.views',
    url(r'^$', 'main_view', name='app_main'),
    url(r'^sublevel/$', 'sample_view', name='app_sublevel'),
)

attached to a page whose URL path is /hello/world/, its views will be exposed as follows:

main_view at /hello/world/
sample_view at /hello/world/sublevel/

Sub-pages of an apphooked page¶

Usually, it’s simplest to leave an apphook to swallow up all the URLs below its page’s URL.

However, as long as the application’s urlconf is not too greedy and doesn’t conflict with the URLs of any sub-pages, those sub-pages can be reached. That is, although the apphooked application will have priority, any URLs it doesn’t consume will be available for ordinary django CMS pages, if they exist.

Apphook management¶

Uninstalling an apphook with applied instances¶

If you remove an apphook class (in effect uninstalling it) from your system that still has instances applied to pages, django CMS tries to handle this as gracefully as possible:

Affected Pages still maintain a record of the applied apphook; if the apphook class is reinstated, it will work as before.
The page list will show apphook indicators where appropriate.
The page will otherwise behave like a normal django CMS page, and display its placeholders in the usual way.
If you save the page’s Advanced settings, the apphook will be removed.

Management commands¶

You can clear uninstalled apphook instances using a CMS management command uninstall apphooks; for example:

manage.py cms uninstall apphooks MyApphook MyOtherApphook

You can get a list of installed apphooks using the cms list; in this case:

manage.py cms list apphooks

See the Management commands reference for more information.

Apphook menus¶

Generally, it is recommended to allow the user to control whether a menu is attached to a page. However, an apphook can be made to do this automatically if required. It will behave just as if it were attached the page using its Advanced settings).

Menus can be added to an apphook using the get_menus() method. On the basis of the example above:

# [...]
from myapp.menu import MyAppMenu

class MyApphook(CMSApp):
    # [...]
    def get_menus(self, page=None, language=None, **kwargs):
        return [MyAppMenu]

Changed in version 3.3: CMSApp.get_menus() replaces CMSApp.menus. The menus attribute is now deprecated and will be removed in version 3.5.

The menus returned in the get_menus() method need to return a list of nodes, in their get_nodes() methods. See Attach Menus for more on creating menu classes that generate nodes.

You can return multiple menu classes; all will be attached to the same page:

def get_menus(self, page=None, language=None, **kwargs):
    return [MyAppMenu, CategoryMenu]

Apphook permissions¶

By default the content represented by an apphook has the same permissions set as the page it is assigned to. So if for example a page requires the user to be logged in, then the attached apphook and all its URLs will have the same requirements.

To disable this behaviour set permissions = False on your apphook:

class SampleApp(CMSApp):
    name = _("Sample App")
    _urls = ["project.sampleapp.urls"]
    permissions = False

If you still want some of your views to use the CMS’s permission checks you can enable them via a decorator, cms.utils.decorators.cms_perms

Here is a simple example:

from cms.utils.decorators import cms_perms

@cms_perms
def my_view(request, **kw):
    ...

If you have your own permission checks in your application, then use exclude_permissions property of the apphook:

class SampleApp(CMSApp):
    name = _("Sample App")
    permissions = True
    exclude_permissions = ["some_nested_app"]

    def get_urls(self, page=None, language=None, **kwargs):
        return ["project.sampleapp.urls"]

For example, django-oscar apphook integration needs to be used with exclude_permissions of the dashboard app, because it uses the customisable access function. So, your apphook in this case will look like this:

class OscarApp(CMSApp):
    name = _("Oscar")
    exclude_permissions = ['dashboard']

    def get_urls(self, page=None, language=None, **kwargs):
        return application.urls[0]

Automatically restart server on apphook changes¶

As mentioned above, whenever you:

add or remove an apphook
change the slug of a page containing an apphook
change the slug of a page with a descendant with an apphook

The CMS the server will reload its URL caches. It does this by listening for the signal cms.signals.urls_need_reloading.

Warning

This signal does not actually do anything itself. For automated server restarting you need to implement logic in your project that gets executed whenever this signal is fired. Because there are many ways of deploying Django applications, there is no way we can provide a generic solution for this problem that will always work.

Warning

The signal is fired after a request. If you change something via an API you’ll need a request for the signal to fire.

Apphooks and placeholder template tags¶

It’s important to understand that while an apphooked application takes over the CMS page at that location completely, depending on how the application’s templates extend other templates, a django CMS {% placeholder %} template tag may be invoked - but will not work.

{% static_placeholder %} tags on the other hand are not page-specific and will function normally.

Complex apphook configuration¶

In Apphooks we discuss some basic points of using apphooks. In this document we will cover some more complex implementation possibilities.

Attaching an application multiple times¶

Define a namespace at class-level¶

If you want to attach an application multiple times to different pages, then the class defining the apphook must have an app_name attribute:

class MyApphook(CMSApp):
    name = _("My Apphook")
    urls = ["myapp.urls"]
    app_name = "myapp"

The app_name does three key things:

It provides the fallback namespace for views and templates that reverse URLs.
It exposes the Application instance name field in the page admin when applying an apphook.
It sets the default apphook instance name (which you’ll see in the Application instance name field).

We’ll explain these with an example. Let’s suppose that your application’s views or templates use reverse('myapp:index') or {% url 'myapp:index' %}.

In this case the namespace of any apphooks you apply must match myapp. If they don’t, your pages using them will throw up a NoReverseMatch error.

You can set the namespace for the instance of the apphook in the Application instance name field. However, you’ll need to set that to something different if an instance with that value already exists. In this case, as long as app_name = "myapp" it doesn’t matter; even if the system doesn’t find a match with the name of the instance it will fall back to the one hard-wired into the class.

In other words setting app_name correctly guarantees that URL-reversing will work, because it sets the fallback namespace approppriately.

Set a namespace at instance-level¶

On the other hand, the Application instance name will override the app_name if a match is found.

This arrangement allows you to use multiple application instances and namespaces if that flexibility is required, while guaranteeing a simple way to make it work when it’s not.

Django’s Reversing namespaced URLs documentation provides more information on how this works, but the simplified version is:

First, it’ll try to find a match for the Application instance name.
If it fails, it will try to find a match for the app_name.

Apphook configurations¶

Namespacing your apphooks also makes it possible to manage additional database-stored aphook configuration, on an instance-by-instance basis.

Basic concepts¶

To capture the configuration that different instances of an apphook can take, a Django model needs to be created - each apphook instance will be an instance of that model, and administered through the Django admin in the usual way.

Once set up, an apphook configuration can be applied to to an apphook instance, in the Advanced settings of the page the apphook instance belongs to:

selecting an apphook configuration application

The configuration is then loaded in the application’s views for that namespace, and will be used to determined how it behaves.

Creating an application configuration in fact creates an apphook instance namespace. Once created, the namespace of a configuration cannot be changed - if a different namespace is required, a new configuration will also need to be created.

An example apphook configuration¶

In order to illustrate how this all works, we’ll create a new FAQ application, that provides a simple list of questions and answers, together with an apphook class and an apphook configuration model that allows it to exist in multiple places on the site in multiple configurations.

We’ll assume that you have a working django CMS project running already.

Using helper applications¶

We’ll use a couple of simple helper applications for this example, just to make our work easier.

Aldryn Apphooks Config¶

Aldryn Apphooks Config is a helper application that makes it easier to develop configurable apphooks. For example, it provides an AppHookConfig for you to subclass, and other useful components to save you time.

In this example, we’ll use Aldryn Apphooks Config, as we recommend it. However, you don’t have to use it in your own projects; if you prefer to can build the code you require by hand.

Use pip install aldryn-apphooks-config to install it.

Aldryn Apphooks Config in turn installs Django AppData, which provides an elegant way for an application to extend another; we’ll make use of this too.

Create the new FAQ application¶

python manage.py startapp faq

Create the FAQ Entry model¶

models.py:

from aldryn_apphooks_config.fields import AppHookConfigField
from aldryn_apphooks_config.managers import AppHookConfigManager
from django.db import models
from faq.cms_appconfig import FaqConfig


class Entry(models.Model):
    app_config = AppHookConfigField(FaqConfig)
    question = models.TextField(blank=True, default='')
    answer = models.TextField()

    objects = AppHookConfigManager()

    def __str__(self): # use __unicode__() if you are using Python 2
        return self.question

    class Meta:
        verbose_name_plural = 'entries'

The app_config field is a ForeignKey to an apphook configuration model; we’ll create it in a moment. This model will hold the specific namespace configuration, and makes it possible to assign each FAQ Entry to a namespace.

The custom AppHookConfigManager is there to make it easy to filter the queryset of Entries using a convenient shortcut: Entry.objects.namespace('foobar').

Define the AppHookConfig subclass¶

In a new file cms_appconfig.py in the FAQ application:

from aldryn_apphooks_config.models import AppHookConfig
from aldryn_apphooks_config.utils import setup_config
from app_data import AppDataForm
from django.db import models
from django import forms
from django.utils.translation import ugettext_lazy as _


class FaqConfig(AppHookConfig):
    paginate_by = models.PositiveIntegerField(
        _('Paginate size'),
        blank=False,
        default=5,
    )


class FaqConfigForm(AppDataForm):
    title = forms.CharField()
setup_config(FaqConfigForm, FaqConfig)

The implementation can be left completely empty, as the minimal schema is already defined in the abstract parent model provided by Aldryn Apphooks Config.

Here though we’re defining an extra field on model, paginate_by. We’ll use it later to control how many entries should be displayed per page.

We also set up a FaqConfigForm, which uses AppDataForm to add a field to FaqConfig without actually touching its model.

The title field could also just be a model field, like paginate_by. But we’re using the AppDataForm to demonstrate this capability.

Define its admin properties¶

In admin.py we need to define all fields we’d like to display:

from django.contrib import admin
from .cms_appconfig import FaqConfig
from .models import Entry
from aldryn_apphooks_config.admin import ModelAppHookConfig, BaseAppHookConfig


class EntryAdmin(ModelAppHookConfig, admin.ModelAdmin):
    list_display = (
        'question',
        'answer',
        'app_config',
    )
    list_filter = (
        'app_config',
    )
admin.site.register(Entry, EntryAdmin)


class FaqConfigAdmin(BaseAppHookConfig, admin.ModelAdmin):
    def get_config_fields(self):
        return (
            'paginate_by',
            'config.title',
        )
admin.site.register(FaqConfig, FaqConfigAdmin)

get_config_fields defines the fields that should be displayed. Any fields using the AppData forms need to be prefixed by config..

Define the apphook itself¶

Now let’s create the apphook, and set it up with support for multiple instances. In cms_apps.py:

from aldryn_apphooks_config.app_base import CMSConfigApp
from cms.apphook_pool import apphook_pool
from django.utils.translation import ugettext_lazy as _
from .cms_appconfig import FaqConfig


class FaqApp(CMSConfigApp):
    name = _("Faq App")
    urls = ["faq.urls"]
    app_name = "faq"
    app_config = FaqConfig

apphook_pool.register(FaqApp)

Define a list view for FAQ entries¶

We have all the basics in place. Now we’ll add a list view for the FAQ entries that only displays entries for the currently used namespace. In views.py:

from aldryn_apphooks_config.mixins import AppConfigMixin
from django.views import generic
from .models import Entry


class IndexView(AppConfigMixin, generic.ListView):
    model = Entry
    template_name = 'faq/index.html'

    def get_queryset(self):
        qs = super(IndexView, self).get_queryset()
        return qs.namespace(self.namespace)

    def get_paginate_by(self, queryset):
        try:
            return self.config.paginate_by
        except AttributeError:
            return 10

AppConfigMixin saves you the work of setting any attributes in your view - it automatically sets, for the view class instance:

current namespace in self.namespace
namespace configuration (the instance of FaqConfig) in self.config
current application in the current_app parameter passed to the Response class

In this case we’re filtering to only show entries assigned to the current namespace in get_queryset. qs.namespace, thanks to the model manager we defined earlier, is the equivalent of qs.filter(app_config__namespace=self.namespace).

In get_paginate_by we use the value from our appconfig model.

Define a template¶

In faq/templates/faq/index.html:

{% extends 'base.html' %}

{% block content %}
    <h1>{{ view.config.title }}</h1>
    <p>Namespace: {{ view.namespace }}</p>
    <dl>
        {% for entry in object_list %}
            <dt>{{ entry.question }}</dt>
            <dd>{{ entry.answer }}</dd>
        {% endfor %}
    </dl>

    {% if is_paginated %}
        <div class="pagination">
            <span class="step-links">
                {% if page_obj.has_previous %}
                    <a href="?page={{ page_obj.previous_page_number }}">previous</a>
                {% else %}
                    previous
                {% endif %}

                <span class="current">
                    Page {{ page_obj.number }} of {{ page_obj.paginator.num_pages }}.
                </span>

                {% if page_obj.has_next %}
                    <a href="?page={{ page_obj.next_page_number }}">next</a>
                {% else %}
                    next
                {% endif %}
            </span>
        </div>
    {% endif %}
{% endblock %}

URLconf¶

urls.py:

from django.conf.urls import url
from . import views


urlpatterns = [
    url(r'^$', views.IndexView.as_view(), name='index'),
]

Put it all together¶

Finally, we add faq to INSTALLED_APPS, then create and run migrations:

python manage.py makemigrations faq
python manage.py migrate faq

Now we should be all set.

Create two pages with the faq apphook (don’t forget to publish them), with different namespaces and different configurations. Also create some entries assigned to the two namespaces.

You can experiment with the different configured behaviours (in this case, only pagination is available), and the way that different Entry instances can be associated with a specific apphook.

Working with templates¶

Application can reuse cms templates by mixing cms template tags and normal django templating language.

static_placeholder¶

Plain placeholder cannot be used in templates used by external applications, use static_placeholder instead.

CMS_TEMPLATE¶

New in version 3.0.

CMS_TEMPLATE is a context variable available in the context; it contains the template path for CMS pages and application using apphooks, and the default template (i.e.: the first template in CMS_TEMPLATES) for non-CMS managed URLs.

This is mostly useful to use it in the extends template tag in the application templates to get the current page template.

Example: cms template

{% load cms_tags %}
<html>
    <body>
    {% cms_toolbar %}
    {% block main %}
    {% placeholder "main" %}
    {% endblock main %}
    </body>
</html>

Example: application template

{% extends CMS_TEMPLATE %}
{% load cms_tags %}
{% block main %}
{% for item in object_list %}
    {{ item }}
{% endfor %}
{% static_placeholder "sidebar" %}
{% endblock main %}

CMS_TEMPLATE memorises the path of the cms template so the application template can dynamically import it.

render_model¶

New in version 3.0.

render_model allows to edit the django models from the frontend by reusing the django CMS frontend editor.

Extending the page & title models¶

New in version 3.0.

You can extend the page and title models with your own fields (e.g. adding an icon for every page) by using the extension models: cms.extensions.PageExtension and cms.extensions.TitleExtension, respectively.

Title vs Page extensions¶

The difference between a page extension and a title extension is related to the difference between the Page and Title models.

Titles support pages by providing a storage mechanism, amongst other things, for language-specific properties of Pages. So, if you find that you need to extend the page model in a language-specific manner - for example, if you need to create language-specific keywords for each language of your pages - then you may need to use a TitleExtension.

On the other hand if the extension you’d like to create is the same for all of the different languages of the page, then you may be fine using a PageExtension.

Implement a basic extension¶

Three basic steps are required:

add the extension model
add the extension admin
add a toolbar menu item for the extension

The model¶

To add a field to the page model, create a class that inherits from cms.extensions.PageExtension. Make sure to import the cms.extensions.PageExtension model. Your class should live in one of your apps’ models.py (or module).

Note

Since PageExtension (and TitleExtension) inherit from django.db.models.Model, you are free to add any field you want but make sure you don’t use a unique constraint on any of your added fields because uniqueness prevents the copy mechanism of the extension from working correctly. This means that you can’t use one-to-one relations on the extension model.

Finally, you’ll need to register the model using extension_pool.

Here’s a simple example which adds an icon field to the page:

from django.db import models

from cms.extensions import PageExtension
from cms.extensions.extension_pool import extension_pool


class IconExtension(PageExtension):
    image = models.ImageField(upload_to='icons')

extension_pool.register(IconExtension)

Of course, you will need to make and run a migration for this new model.

The admin¶

To make your extension editable, you must first create an admin class that sub-classes cms.extensions.PageExtensionAdmin. This admin handles page permissions.

Note

If you want to use your own admin class, make sure to exclude the live versions of the extensions by using filter(extended_page__publisher_is_draft=True) on the queryset.

Continuing with the example model above, here’s a simple corresponding PageExtensionAdmin class:

from django.contrib import admin
from cms.extensions import PageExtensionAdmin

from .models import IconExtension


class IconExtensionAdmin(PageExtensionAdmin):
    pass

admin.site.register(IconExtension, IconExtensionAdmin)

Since PageExtensionAdmin inherits from ModelAdmin, you’ll be able to use the normal set of Django ModelAdmin properties appropriate to your needs.

Once you’ve registered your admin class, a new model will appear in the top- level admin list.

Note

Note that the field that holds the relationship between the extension and a CMS Page is non-editable, so it does not appear directly in the Page admin views. This may be addressed in a future update, but in the meantime the toolbar provides access to it.

Using extensions¶

In templates¶

To access a page extension in page templates you can simply access the appropriate related_name field that is now available on the Page object.

Page extensions¶

As per the normal related_name naming mechanism, the appropriate field to access is the same as your PageExtension model name, but lowercased. Assuming your Page Extension model class is IconExtension, the relationship to the page extension model will be available on page.iconextension. From there you can access the extra fields you defined in your extension, so you can use something like:

{% load staticfiles %}

{# rest of template omitted ... #}

{% if request.current_page.iconextension %}
    <img src="{% static request.current_page.iconextension.image.url %}">
{% endif %}

where request.current_page is the normal way to access the current page that is rendering the template.

It is important to remember that unless the operator has already assigned a page extension to every page, a page may not have the iconextension relationship available, hence the use of the {% if ... %}...{% endif %} above.

Title extensions¶

In order to access to a title extension within a template, get the Title object using request.current_page.get_title_obj, for example:

{{ request.current_page.get_title_obj.your_title_extension }}

With menus¶

Like most other Page attributes, extensions are not represented in the menu NavigationNodes, and therefore menu templates will not have access to them by default.

In order to make the extension accessible, you’ll need to create a menu modifier (see the example provided) that does this.

Each page extension instance has a one-to-one relationship with its page. Get the extension by using the reverse relation, along the lines of extension = page.yourextensionlowercased, and place this attribute of page on the node - as (for example) node.extension.

In the menu template the icon extension we created above would therefore be available as child.extension.icon.

Handling relations¶

If your PageExtension or TitleExtension includes a ForeignKey from another model or includes a ManyToMany field, you should also override the method copy_relations(self, oldinstance, language) so that these fields are copied appropriately when the CMS makes a copy of your extension to support versioning, etc.

Here’s an example that uses a ManyToMany` field:

from django.db import models
from cms.extensions import PageExtension
from cms.extensions.extension_pool import extension_pool


class MyPageExtension(PageExtension):

    page_categories = models.ManyToMany('categories.Category', blank=True, null=True)

    def copy_relations(self, oldinstance, language):
        for page_category in oldinstance.page_categories.all():
            page_category.pk = None
            page_category.mypageextension = self
            page_category.save()

extension_pool.register(MyPageExtension)

Complete toolbar API¶

The example above uses the Simplified Toolbar API.

If you need complete control over the layout of your extension toolbar items you can still use the low-level API to edit the toolbar according to your needs:

from cms.api import get_page_draft
from cms.toolbar_pool import toolbar_pool
from cms.toolbar_base import CMSToolbar
from cms.utils import get_cms_setting
from cms.utils.permissions import has_page_change_permission
from django.core.urlresolvers import reverse, NoReverseMatch
from django.utils.translation import ugettext_lazy as _
from .models import IconExtension


@toolbar_pool.register
class IconExtensionToolbar(CMSToolbar):
    def populate(self):
        # always use draft if we have a page
        self.page = get_page_draft(self.request.current_page)

        if not self.page:
            # Nothing to do
            return

        # check global permissions if CMS_PERMISSION is active
        if get_cms_setting('PERMISSION'):
            has_global_current_page_change_permission = has_page_change_permission(self.request)
        else:
            has_global_current_page_change_permission = False
            # check if user has page edit permission
        can_change = self.request.current_page and self.request.current_page.has_change_permission(self.request)
        if has_global_current_page_change_permission or can_change:
            try:
                icon_extension = IconExtension.objects.get(extended_object_id=self.page.id)
            except IconExtension.DoesNotExist:
                icon_extension = None
            try:
                if icon_extension:
                    url = reverse('admin:myapp_iconextension_change', args=(icon_extension.pk,))
                else:
                    url = reverse('admin:myapp_iconextension_add') + '?extended_object=%s' % self.page.pk
            except NoReverseMatch:
                # not in urls
                pass
            else:
                not_edit_mode = not self.toolbar.edit_mode
                current_page_menu = self.toolbar.get_or_create_menu('page')
                current_page_menu.add_modal_item(_('Page Icon'), url=url, disabled=not_edit_mode)

Now when the operator invokes “Edit this page...” from the toolbar, there will be an additional menu item Page Icon ... (in this case), which can be used to open a modal dialog where the operator can affect the new icon field.

Note that when the extension is saved, the corresponding page is marked as having unpublished changes. To see the new extension values publish the page.

Testing Your Extensions¶

Testing Apps¶

Resolving View Names¶

Your apps need testing, but in your live site they aren’t in urls.py as they are attached to a CMS page. So if you want to be able to use reverse() in your tests, or test templates that use the url template tag, you need to hook up your app to a special test version of urls.py and tell your tests to use that.

So you could create myapp/tests/urls.py with the following code:

from django.contrib import admin
from django.conf.urls import url, include

urlpatterns = [
    url(r'^admin/', include(admin.site.urls)),
    url(r'^myapp/', include('myapp.urls')),
    url(r'', include('cms.urls')),
]

And then in your tests you can plug this in with the override_settings() decorator:

from django.test.utils import override_settings
from cms.test_utils.testcases import CMSTestCase

class MyappTests(CMSTestCase):

    @override_settings(ROOT_URLCONF='myapp.tests.urls')
    def test_myapp_page(self):
        test_url = reverse('myapp_view_name')
        # rest of test as normal

If you want to the test url conf throughout your test class, then you can use apply the decorator to the whole class:

from django.test.utils import override_settings
from cms.test_utils.testcases import CMSTestCase

@override_settings(ROOT_URLCONF='myapp.tests.urls')
class MyappTests(CMSTestCase):

    def test_myapp_page(self):
        test_url = reverse('myapp_view_name')
        # rest of test as normal

CMSTestCase¶

Django CMS includes CMSTestCase which has various utility methods that might be useful for testing your CMS app and manipulating CMS pages.

Testing Plugins¶

To test plugins, you need to assign them to a placeholder. Depending on at what level you want to test your plugin, you can either check the HTML generated by it or the context provided to its template:

from django.test import TestCase

from cms.api import add_plugin
from cms.models import Placeholder

from myapp.cms_plugins import MyPlugin
from myapp.models import MyappPlugin

class MypluginTests(TestCase):
    def test_plugin_context(self):
        placeholder = Placeholder.objects.create(slot='test')
        model_instance = add_plugin(
            placeholder,
            MyPlugin,
            'en',
        )
        plugin_instance = model_instance.get_plugin_class_instance()
        context = plugin_instance.render({}, model_instance, None)
        self.assertIn('key', context)
        self.assertEqual(context['key'], 'value')

    def test_plugin_html(self):
        placeholder = Placeholder.objects.create(slot='test')
        model_instance = add_plugin(
            placeholder,
            MyPlugin,
            'en',
        )
        html = model_instance.render_plugin({})
        self.assertEqual(html, '<strong>Test</strong>')

Placeholders outside the CMS¶

Placeholders are special model fields that django CMS uses to render user-editable content (plugins) in templates. That is, it’s the place where a user can add text, video or any other plugin to a webpage, using the same frontend editing as the CMS pages.

Placeholders can be viewed as containers for CMSPlugin instances, and can be used outside the CMS in custom applications using the PlaceholderField.

By defining one (or several) PlaceholderField on a custom model you can take advantage of the full power of CMSPlugin.

Get started¶

You need to define a PlaceholderField on the model you would like to use:

from django.db import models
from cms.models.fields import PlaceholderField

class MyModel(models.Model):
    # your fields
    my_placeholder = PlaceholderField('placeholder_name')
    # your methods

The PlaceholderField has one required parameter, a string slotname.

The slotname is used in templates, to determine where the placeholder’s plugins should appear in the page, and in the placeholder configuration CMS_PLACEHOLDER_CONF, which determines which plugins may be inserted into this placeholder.

You can also use a callable for the slotname, as in:

from django.db import models
from cms.models.fields import PlaceholderField

def my_placeholder_slotname(instance):
    return 'placeholder_name'

class MyModel(models.Model):
    # your fields
    my_placeholder = PlaceholderField(my_placeholder_slotname)
    # your methods

Warning

For security reasons the related_name for a PlaceholderField may not be suppressed using '+'; this allows the cms to check permissions properly. Attempting to do so will raise a ValueError.

Note

If you add a PlaceholderField to an existing model, you’ll be able to see the placeholder in the frontend editor only after saving the relevant instance.

Admin Integration¶

Changed in version 3.0.

Your model with PlaceholderFields can still be edited in the admin. However, any PlaceholderFields in it will only be available for editing from the frontend. PlaceholderFields must not be present in any fieldsets, fields, form or other ModelAdmin field’s definition attribute.

To provide admin support for a model with a PlaceholderField in your application’s admin, you need to use the mixin PlaceholderAdminMixin along with the ModelAdmin. Note that the PlaceholderAdminMixin must precede the ModelAdmin in the class definition:

from django.contrib import admin
from cms.admin.placeholderadmin import PlaceholderAdminMixin
from myapp.models import MyModel

class MyModelAdmin(PlaceholderAdminMixin, admin.ModelAdmin):
    pass

admin.site.register(MyModel, MyModelAdmin)

I18N Placeholders¶

Out of the box PlaceholderAdminMixin supports multiple languages and will display language tabs. If you extend your model admin class derived from PlaceholderAdminMixin and overwrite change_form_template have a look at admin/placeholders/placeholder/change_form.html to see how to display the language tabs.

If you need other fields translated as well, django CMS has support for django-hvad. If you use a TranslatableModel model be sure to not include the placeholder fields amongst the translated fields:

class MultilingualExample1(TranslatableModel):
    translations = TranslatedFields(
        title=models.CharField('title', max_length=255),
        description=models.CharField('description', max_length=255),
    )
    placeholder_1 = PlaceholderField('placeholder_1')

    def __str__(self): # use __unicode__() if you are using Python 2
        return self.title

Be sure to combine both hvad’s TranslatableAdmin and PlaceholderAdminMixin when registering your model with the admin site:

from cms.admin.placeholderadmin import PlaceholderAdminMixin
from django.contrib import admin
from hvad.admin import TranslatableAdmin
from myapp.models import MultilingualExample1

class MultilingualModelAdmin(TranslatableAdmin, PlaceholderAdminMixin, admin.ModelAdmin):
    pass

admin.site.register(MultilingualExample1, MultilingualModelAdmin)

Templates¶

To render the placeholder in a template you use the render_placeholder tag from the cms_tags template tag library:

{% load cms_tags %}

{% render_placeholder mymodel_instance.my_placeholder "640" %}

The render_placeholder tag takes the following parameters:

PlaceholderField instance
width parameter for context sensitive plugins (optional)
language keyword plus language-code string to render content in the specified language (optional)

The view in which you render your placeholder field must return the request object in the context. This is typically achieved in Django applications by using RequestContext:

from django.shortcuts import get_object_or_404, render

def my_model_detail(request, id):
    object = get_object_or_404(MyModel, id=id)
    return render(request, 'my_model_detail.html', {
        'object': object,
    })

If you want to render plugins from a specific language, you can use the tag like this:

{% load cms_tags %}

{% render_placeholder mymodel_instance.my_placeholder language 'en' %}

Adding content to a placeholder¶

Changed in version 3.0.

Placeholders can be edited from the frontend by visiting the page displaying your model (where you put the render_placeholder tag), then appending ?edit to the page’s URL.

This will make the frontend editor top banner appear (and if necessary will require you to login).

Once in frontend editing mode, the interface for your application’s PlaceholderFields will work in much the same way as it does for CMS Pages, with a switch for Structure and Content modes and so on.

There is no automatic draft/live functionality for general Django models, so content is updated instantly whenever you add/edit them.

Options¶

If you need to change ?edit to a custom string (say, ?admin_on) you may set CMS_TOOLBAR_URL__EDIT_ON variable in your settings.py to "admin_on".

You may also change other URLs with similar settings:

?edit_off (CMS_TOOLBAR_URL__EDIT_OFF)
?build (CMS_TOOLBAR_URL__BUILD)
?toolbar_off (CMS_TOOLBAR_URL__DISABLE)

When changing these settings, please be careful because you might inadvertently replace reserved strings in system (such as ?page). We recommended you use safely unique strings for this option (such as secret_admin or company_name).

Permissions¶

To be able to edit a placeholder user must be a staff member and needs either edit permissions on the model that contains the PlaceholderField, or permissions for that specific instance of that model. Required permissions for edit actions are:

to add: require add or change permission on related Model or instance.
to change: require add or change permission on related Model or instance.
to delete: require add or change or delete permission on related Model or instance.

With this logic, an user who can change a Model’s instance but can not add a new Model’s instance will be able to add some placeholders or plugins to existing Model’s instances.

Model permissions are usually added through the default Django auth application and its admin interface. Object-level permission can be handled by writing a custom authentication backend as described in django docs

For example, if there is a UserProfile model that contains a PlaceholderField then the custom backend can refer to a has_perm method (on the model) that grants all rights to current user only based on the user’s UserProfile object:

def has_perm(self, user_obj, perm, obj=None):
    if not user_obj.is_staff:
        return False
    if isinstance(obj, UserProfile):
        if user_obj.get_profile()==obj:
            return True
    return False

Caching¶

Set-up¶

To setup caching configure a caching backend in django.

Details for caching can be found here: https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/topics/cache/

In your middleware settings be sure to add django.middleware.cache.UpdateCacheMiddleware at the first and django.middleware.cache.FetchFromCacheMiddleware at the last position:

MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES=[
        'django.middleware.cache.UpdateCacheMiddleware',
        ...
        'cms.middleware.language.LanguageCookieMiddleware',
        'cms.middleware.user.CurrentUserMiddleware',
        'cms.middleware.page.CurrentPageMiddleware',
        'cms.middleware.toolbar.ToolbarMiddleware',
        'django.middleware.cache.FetchFromCacheMiddleware',
    ],

Plugins¶

New in version 3.0.

Normally all plugins will be cached. If you have a plugin that is dynamic based on the current user or other dynamic properties of the request set the cache=False attribute on the plugin class:

class MyPlugin(CMSPluginBase):
    name = _("MyPlugin")
    cache = False

Warning

If you disable a plugin cache be sure to restart the server and clear the cache afterwards.

Content Cache Duration¶

Default: 60

This can be changed in CMS_CACHE_DURATIONS

Settings¶

Caching is set default to true. Have a look at the following settings to enable/disable various caching behaviours:

Frontend editing for Page and Django models¶

New in version 3.0.

As well as PlaceholderFields, ‘ordinary’ Django model fields (both on CMS Pages and your own Django models) can also be edited through django CMS’s frontend editing interface. This is very convenient for the user because it saves having to switch between frontend and admin views.

Using this interface, model instance values that can be edited show the “Double-click to edit” hint on hover. Double-clicking opens a pop-up window containing the change form for that model.

Note

This interface is not currently available for touch-screen users, but will be improved in future releases.

Warning

By default and for consistency with previous releases, template tags used by this feature mark as safe the content of the rendered model attribute. This may be a security risk if used on fields which may hold non-trusted content. Be aware, and use the template tags accordingly. To change this behaviour, set the setting: CMS_UNESCAPED_RENDER_MODEL_TAGS to False.

Warning

This feature is only partially compatible with django-hvad: using render_model with hvad-translated fields (say {% render_model object 'translated_field' %} returns an error if the hvad-enabled object does not exists in the current language. As a workaround render_model_icon can be used instead.

Template tags¶

This feature relies on five template tags sharing common code. All require that you {% load cms_tags %} in your template:

render_model (for editing a specific field)
render_model_block (for editing any of the fields in a defined block)
render_model_icon (for editing a field represented by another value, such as an image)
render_model_add (for adding an instance of the specified model)
render_model_add_block (for adding an instance of the specified model)

Look at the tag-specific page for more detailed reference and discussion of limitations and caveats.

Page titles edit¶

For CMS pages you can edit the titles from the frontend; according to the attribute specified a default field, which can also be overridden, will be editable.

Main title:

{% render_model request.current_page "title" %}

Page title:

{% render_model request.current_page "page_title" %}

Menu title:

{% render_model request.current_page "menu_title" %}

All three titles:

{% render_model request.current_page "titles" %}

You can always customise the editable fields by providing the edit_field parameter:

{% render_model request.current_page "title" "page_title,menu_title" %}

Page menu edit¶

By using the special keyword changelist as edit field the frontend editing will show the page tree; a common pattern for this is to enable changes in the menu by wrapping the menu template tags:

{% render_model_block request.current_page "changelist" %}
    <h3>Menu</h3>
    <ul>
        {% show_menu 1 100 0 1 "sidebar_submenu_root.html" %}
    </ul>
{% endrender_model_block %}

Will render to:

<div class="cms-plugin cms-plugin-cms-page-changelist-1">
    <h3>Menu</h3>
    <ul>
        <li><a href="/">Home</a></li>
        <li><a href="/another">another</a></li>
        [...]
</div>

Editing ‘ordinary’ Django models¶

As noted above, your own Django models can also present their fields for editing in the frontend. This is achieved by using the FrontendEditableAdminMixin base class.

Note that this is only required for fields other than PlaceholderFields. PlaceholderFields are automatically made available for frontend editing.

Configure the model’s admin class¶

Configure your admin class by adding the FrontendEditableAdminMixin mixin to it (see Django admin documentation for general Django admin information):

from cms.admin.placeholderadmin import FrontendEditableAdminMixin
from django.contrib import admin


class MyModelAdmin(FrontendEditableAdminMixin, admin.ModelAdmin):
    ...

The ordering is important: as usual, mixins must come first.

Then set up the templates where you want to expose the model for editing, adding a render_model template tag:

{% load cms_tags %}

{% block content %}
<h1>{% render_model instance "some_attribute" %}</h1>
{% endblock content %}

See template tag reference for arguments documentation.

Selected fields edit¶

Frontend editing is also possible for a set of fields.

Set up the admin¶

You need to add to your model admin a tuple of fields editable from the frontend admin:

from cms.admin.placeholderadmin import FrontendEditableAdminMixin
from django.contrib import admin


class MyModelAdmin(FrontendEditableAdminMixin, admin.ModelAdmin):
    frontend_editable_fields = ("foo", "bar")
    ...

Set up the template¶

Then add comma separated list of fields (or just the name of one field) to the template tag:

{% load cms_tags %}

{% block content %}
<h1>{% render_model instance "some_attribute" "some_field,other_field" %}</h1>
{% endblock content %}

Special attributes¶

The attribute argument of the template tag is not required to be a model field, property or method can also be used as target; in case of a method, it will be called with request as argument.

Custom views¶

You can link any field to a custom view (not necessarily an admin view) to handle model-specific editing workflow.

The custom view can be passed either as a named url (view_url parameter) or as name of a method (or property) on the instance being edited (view_method parameter). In case you provide view_method it will be called whenever the template tag is evaluated with request as parameter.

The custom view does not need to obey any specific interface; it will get edit_fields value as a GET parameter.

See template tag reference for arguments documentation.

Example view_url:

{% load cms_tags %}

{% block content %}
<h1>{% render_model instance "some_attribute" "some_field,other_field" "" "admin:exampleapp_example1_some_view" %}</h1>
{% endblock content %}

Example view_method:

class MyModel(models.Model):
    char = models.CharField(max_length=10)

    def some_method(self, request):
        return "/some/url"


{% load cms_tags %}

{% block content %}
<h1>{% render_model instance "some_attribute" "some_field,other_field" "" "" "some_method" %}</h1>
{% endblock content %}

Model changelist¶

By using the special keyword changelist as edit field the frontend editing will show the model changelist:

{% render_model instance "name" "changelist" %}

Will render to:

<div class="cms-plugin cms-plugin-myapp-mymodel-changelist-1">
    My Model Instance Name
</div>

Filters¶

If you need to apply filters to the output value of the template tag, add quoted sequence of filters as in Django filter template tag:

{% load cms_tags %}

{% block content %}
<h1>{% render_model instance "attribute" "" "" "truncatechars:9" %}</h1>
{% endblock content %}

Context variable¶

The template tag output can be saved in a context variable for later use, using the standard as syntax:

{% load cms_tags %}

{% block content %}
{% render_model instance "attribute" as variable %}

<h1>{{ variable }}</h1>

{% endblock content %}

Sitemap Guide¶

Sitemap¶

Sitemaps are XML files used by Google to index your website by using their Webmaster Tools and telling them the location of your sitemap.

The cms.sitemaps.CMSSitemap will create a sitemap with all the published pages of your CMS.

Configuration¶

add django.contrib.sitemaps to your project’s INSTALLED_APPS setting

add from cms.sitemaps import CMSSitemap to the top of your main urls.py

add url(r'^sitemap\.xml$', 'django.contrib.sitemaps.views.sitemap', {'sitemaps': {'cmspages': CMSSitemap}}), to your urlpatterns

`django.contrib.sitemaps`¶

More information about django.contrib.sitemaps can be found in the official Django documentation.

New in version 3.0.

Page Types¶

Page Types make it easier for content editors to create pages from predefined types.

The examples contain content such as plugins that will be copied over to the newly-created page, leaving the type untouched.

Creating Page Types¶

First you need to create a new page in the usual way; this will become the template for your new page type.

Use this page as your template to add example content and plugins until you reach a satisfied result.

Once ready, choose Save as Page Type... from the Page menu and give it an appropriate name. Don’t worry about making it perfect, you can continue to change its content and settings.

This will create a new page type, and makes it available from Add Page command and the Create wizard dialog.

If you don’t want or need the original page from which you create the new page type, you can simply delete it.

Managing Page Types¶

When you save a page as a page type, it is placed in the page list under Page Types node.

This node behaves differently from regular pages:

They are not publicly accessible.
All pages listed in Page Types will be rendered in the Page Types drop-down menu.

There’s also a quick way to create a new page type: simply drag an existing page to the Page Types node, whereupon it will become a new page type.

Selecting a Page Type¶

You can now select a page type when creating a new page. You’ll find a drop-down menu named Page Type from which you can select the type for your new page.

New in version 3.2.

Content creation wizards¶

django CMS offers a framework for creating ‘wizards’ - helpers - for content editors.

They provide a simplified workflow for common tasks.

A django CMS Page wizard already exists, but you can create your own for other content types very easily.

Create a content-creation wizard¶

Creating a CMS content creation wizard for your own module is fairly easy.

To begin, create a file in the root level of your module called cms_wizards.py. In this file, import Wizard as follows:

from cms.wizards.wizard_base import Wizard
from cms.wizards.wizard_pool import wizard_pool

Then, simply subclass Wizard, instantiate it, then register it. If you were to do this for MyApp, it might look like this:

# my_apps/cms_wizards.py

from cms.wizards.wizard_base import Wizard
from cms.wizards.wizard_pool import wizard_pool

from .forms import MyAppWizardForm
from .models import MyApp

class MyAppWizard(Wizard):
    pass

my_app_wizard = MyAppWizard(
    title="New MyApp",
    weight=200,
    form=MyAppWizardForm,
    description="Create a new MyApp instance",
)

wizard_pool.register(my_app_wizard)

And you need a form:

# my_apps/forms.py

from django import forms

class MyAppWizardForm(forms.ModelForm):
    class Meta:
        model = MyApp
        exclude = []

That’s it!

Note

the module name cms_wizards is special, in that any such-named modules in your project’s Python path will automatically be loaded, triggering the registration of any wizards found in them. Wizards may be declared and registered in other modules, but they might not be automatically loaded.

The above example is using a ModelForm, but you can also use forms.Form. In this case, you must provide the model class as another keyword argument when you instantiate the Wizard object.

You must subclass cms.wizards.wizard_base.Wizard to use it. This is because each wizard’s uniqueness is determined by its class and module name.

See the Reference section on wizards for technical details of the wizards API.

Contributing a patch¶

Note

For more background on the material covered in this how-to section, see the Contributing code and Running and writing tests sections of the documentation.

django CMS is an open project, and welcomes the participation of anyone who would like to contribute, whatever their any level of knowledge.

As well as code, we welcome contributions to django CMS’s documentation and translations.

Note

Feel free to dive into coding for django CMS in whichever way suits you. However, you need to be aware of the guidelines and policies for django CMS project development. Adhering to them will make much easier for the core developers to validate and accept your contribution.

The basics¶

The basic workflow for a code contribution will typically run as follows:

Fork the django CMS project GitHub repository to your own GitHub account

Clone your fork locally:

git clone git@github.com:YOUR_USERNAME/django-cms.git

Create a virtualenv:

virtualenv cms-develop
source cms-develop/bin/activate

Install its dependencies:
```
cd django-cms
pip install -r test_requirements/django-X.Y.txt
```
Replace X.Y with whichever version of Django you want to work with.
Create a new branch for your work:
```
git checkout -b my_fix
```
Edit the django CMS codebase to implement the fix or feature.
Run the test suite:
```
python manage.py test
```
Commit and push your code:
```
git commit
git push origin my_fix
```
Open a pull request on GitHub.

Target branches¶

See Branches for information about branch policy.

How to write a test¶

The django CMS test suite contains a mix of unit tests, functional tests, regression tests and integration tests.

Depending on your contribution, you will write a mix of them.

Let’s start with something simple. We’ll assume you have set up your environment correctly as described above.

Let’s say you want to test the behaviour of the CMSPluginBase.render method:

class CMSPluginBase(six.with_metaclass(CMSPluginBaseMetaclass, admin.ModelAdmin)):

    ...

    def render(self, context, instance, placeholder):
        context['instance'] = instance
        context['placeholder'] = placeholder
        return context

Writing a unit test for it will require us to test whether the returned context object contains the declared attributes with the correct values.

We will start with a new class in an existing django CMS test module (cms.tests.plugins in this case):

class SimplePluginTestCase(CMSTestCase):
    pass

Let’s try to run it:

python manage.py test cms.tests.test_plugins.SimplePluginTestCase

This will call the new test case class only and it’s handy when creating new tests and iterating quickly through the steps. A full test run (python manage.py test) is required before opening a pull request.

This is the output you’ll get:

Creating test database for alias 'default'...

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Ran 0 tests in 0.000s

OK

Which is correct as we have no test in our test case. Let’s add an empty one:

class SimplePluginTestCase(CMSTestCase):

    def test_render_method(self):
        pass

Running the test command again will return a slightly different output:

Creating test database for alias 'default'...
.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Ran 1 test in 0.001s

OK

This looks better, but it’s not that meaningful as we’re not testing anything.

Write a real test:

class SimplePluginTestCase(CMSTestCase):

    def test_render_method(self):
        """
        Tests the CMSPluginBase.render method by checking that the appropriate variables
        are set in the returned context
        """
        from cms.api import create_page
        my_page = create_page('home', language='en', template='col_two.html')
        placeholder = my_page.placeholders.get(slot='col_left')
        context = self.get_context('/', page=my_page)
        plugin = CMSPluginBase()

        new_context = plugin.render(context, None, placeholder)
        self.assertTrue('placeholder' in new_context)
        self.assertEqual(placeholder, context['placeholder'])
        self.assertTrue('instance' in new_context)
        self.assertIsNone(new_context['instance'])

and run it:

Creating test database for alias 'default'...
.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Ran 1 test in 0.044s

OK

The output is quite similar to the previous run, but the longer execution time gives us a hint that this test is actually doing something.

Let’s quickly check the test code.

To test CMSPluginBase.render method we need a RequestContext instance and a placeholder. As CMSPluginBase does not have any configuration model, the instance argument can be None.

Create a page instance to get the placeholder
Get the placeholder by filtering the placeholders of the page instance on the expected placeholder name
Create a context instance by using the provided super class method
Call the render method on a CMSPluginBase instance; being stateless, it’s easy to call render of a bare instance of the CMSPluginBase class, which helps in tests
Assert a few things the method must provide on the returned context instance

As you see, even a simple test like this assumes and uses many feature of the test utilities provided by django CMS. Before attempting to write a test, take your time to explore the content of cms.test_utils package and check the shipped templates, example applications and, most of all, the base testcases defined in cms.test_utils.testscases which provide a lot of useful methods to prepare the environment for our tests or to create useful test data.

Submitting your code¶

After the code and the tests are ready and packed in commits, you must submit it for review and merge in the django CMS GitHub project.

As noted above, always create a new branch for your code, be it a fix or a new feature, before committing changes, then create your pull request from your branch to the target branch on django CMS.

Acceptance criteria¶

Matching these criteria from the very beginning will help the core developers to be able to review your submission more quickly and efficiently and will increase the chances of making a successful pull request.

Please see our Development policies for guidance on which branches to use, how to prepare pull requests and so on.

Features¶

To be accepted, proposed features should have at least:

natural language documentation in the docs folder describing the feature, its usage and potentially backward incompatibilities.

inline documentation (comments and docstrings) in the critical areas of the code explaining the behaviour

appropriate test coverage

Python 2/3 compatibility

Django migrations (where applicable)

The pull request description must briefly describe the feature and the intended goal and benefits.

Bugs¶

To be accepted, proposed bug fixes should have at least:

inline documentation (comments and docstrings) in the critical areas of the code explaining the behaviour

at least 1 regression test that demonstrates the issue and the fix

Python 2/3 compatibility

Django migrations (where applicable)

The pull request description must briefly describe the bug and the steps for its solution; in case the bug has been opened elsewhere, it must be linked in the pull request description, describing the fix.

Key topics¶

This section explains and analyses some key concepts in django CMS. It’s less concerned with explaining how to do things than with helping you understand how it works.

Using touch-screen devices with django CMS¶

Important

These notes about touch interface support apply only to the django CMS admin and editing interfaces. The visitor-facing published site is wholly independent of this, and the responsibility of the site developer.

General¶

django CMS has made extensive use of double-click functionality, which lacks an exact equivalent in touch-screen interfaces. The touch interface will interpret taps and touches in an intelligent way.

Depending on the context, a tap will be interpreted to mean open for editing (that is, the equivalent of a double-click), or to mean select (the equivalent of a single click), according to what makes sense in that context.

Similarly, in some contexts similar interactions may drag objects, or may scroll them, depending on what makes most sense. Sometimes, the two behaviours will be present in the same view, for example in the page list, where certain areas are draggable (for page re-ordering) while other parts of the page can be used for scrolling.

In general, the chosen behaviour is reasonable for a particular object, context or portion of the screen, and in practice is quicker and easier to apprehend simply by using it than it is to explain.

Pop-up help text will refer to clicking or tapping depending on the device being used.

Be aware that some hover-related user hints are simply not available to touch interface users. For example, the overlay (formerly, the sideframe) can be adjusted for width by dragging its edge, but this is not indicated in a touch-screen interface.

Device support¶

Smaller devices such as most phones are too small to be adequately usable. For example, your Apple Watch is sadly unlikely to provide a very good django CMS editing experience.

Older devices will often lack the performance to support a usefully responsive frontend editing/administration interface.

The following devices are known to work well, so newer devices and more powerful models should also be suitable:

iOS: Apple iPad Air 1, Mini 4
Android: Sony Xperia Z2 Tablet, Samsung Galaxy Tab 4
Windows 10: Microsoft Surface

We welcome feedback about specific devices.

Your site’s frontend¶

django CMS’s toolbar and frontend editing architecture rely on good practices in your own frontend code. To work well with django CMS’s responsive management framework, your own site should be friendly towards multiple devices.

Whether you use your own frontend code or a framework such as Bootstrap 3 or Foundation, be aware that problems in your CSS or markup can affect django CMS editing modes, and this will become especially apparent to users of mobile/hand-held devices.

Known issues¶

General issues¶

Editing links that lack sufficient padding is currently difficult or impossible using touch-screens.
Similarly, other areas of a page where the visible content is composed entirely of links with minimal padding around them can be difficult or impossible to open for editing by tapping. This can affect the navigation menu (double-clicking on the navigation menu opens the page list).
Adding links is known to be problematic on some Android devices, because of the behaviour of the keyboard.
On some devices, managing django CMS in the browser’s private (also known as incognito) mode can have significant performance implications.

This is because local storage is not available in this mode, and user state must be stored in a Django session, which is much less efficient.

This is an unusual use case, and should not affect many users.

CKEditor issues¶

Scrolling on narrow devices, especially when opening the keyboard inside the CKEditor, does not always work ideally - sometimes the keyboard can appear in the wrong place on-screen.
Sometimes the CKEditor moves unexpectedly on-screen in use.
Sometimes in Safari on iOS devices, a rendering bug will apparently truncate or reposition portions of the toolbar when the CKEditor is opened - even though sections may appear to missing or moved, they can still be activated by touching the part of the screen where they should have been found.

Django Admin issues¶

In the page tree, the first touch on the page opens the keyboard which may be undesirable. This happens because Django automatically focuses the search form input.

How the menu system works¶

Basic concepts¶

Soft Roots¶

A soft root is a page that acts as the root for a menu navigation tree.

Typically, this will be a page that is the root of a significant new section on your site.

When the soft root feature is enabled, the navigation menu for any page will start at the nearest soft root, rather than at the real root of the site’s page hierarchy.

This feature is useful when your site has deep page hierarchies (and therefore multiple levels in its navigation trees). In such a case, you usually don’t want to present site visitors with deep menus of nested items.

For example, you’re on the page “Introduction to Bleeding”, so the menu might look like this:

School of Medicine
    Medical Education
    Departments
        Department of Lorem Ipsum
        Department of Donec Imperdiet
        Department of Cras Eros
        Department of Mediaeval Surgery
            Theory
            Cures
                Bleeding
                    * Introduction to Bleeding <current page>
                    Bleeding - the scientific evidence
                    Cleaning up the mess
                Cupping
                Leaches
                Maggots
            Techniques
            Instruments
        Department of Curabitur a Purus
        Department of Sed Accumsan
        Department of Etiam
    Research
    Administration
    Contact us
    Impressum

which is frankly overwhelming.

By making “Department of Mediaeval Surgery” a soft root, the menu becomes much more manageable:

Department of Mediaeval Surgery
    Theory
    Cures
        Bleeding
            * Introduction to Bleeding <current page>
            Bleeding - the scientific evidence
            Cleaning up the mess
        Cupping
        Leaches
        Maggots
    Techniques
    Instruments

Registration¶

The menu system isn’t monolithic. Rather, it is composed of numerous active parts, many of which can operate independently of each other.

What they operate on is a list of menu nodes, that gets passed around the menu system, until it emerges at the other end.

The main active parts of the menu system are menu generators and modifiers.

Some of these parts are supplied with the menus application. Some come from other applications (from the cms application in django CMS, for example, or some other application entirely).

All these active parts need to be registered within the menu system.

Then, when the time comes to build a menu, the system will ask all the registered menu generators and modifiers to get to work on it.

Generators and Modifiers¶

Menu generators and modifiers are classes.

Generators¶

To add nodes to a menu a generator is required.

There is one in cms for example, which examines the Pages in the database and adds them as nodes.

These classes are sub-classes of menus.base.Menu. The one in cms is cms.menu.CMSMenu.

In order to use a generator, its get_nodes() method must be called.

Modifiers¶

A modifier examines the nodes that have been assembled, and modifies them according to its requirements (adding or removing them, or manipulating their attributes, as it sees fit).

An important one in cms (cms.menu.SoftRootCutter) removes the nodes that are no longer required when a soft root is encountered.

These classes are sub-classes of menus.base.Modifier. Examples are cms.menu.NavExtender and cms.menu.SoftRootCutter.

In order to use a modifier, its modify() method must be called.

Note that each Modifier’s modify() method can be called twice, before and after the menu has been trimmed.

For example when using the {% show_menu %} template tag, it’s called:

first, by menus.menu_pool.MenuPool.get_nodes(), with the argument post_cut = False
later, by the template tag, with the argument post_cut = True

This corresponds to the state of the nodes list before and after menus.templatetags.menu_tags.cut_levels(), which removes nodes from the menu according to the arguments provided by the template tag.

This is because some modification might be required on all nodes, and some might only be required on the subset of nodes left after cutting.

Nodes¶

Nodes are assembled in a tree. Each node is an instance of the menus.base.NavigationNode class.

A NavigationNode has attributes such as URL, title, parent and children - as one would expect in a navigation tree.

It also has an attr attribute, a dictionary that’s provided for you to add arbitrary attributes to, rather than placing them directly on the node itself, where they might clash with something.

Warning

You can’t assume that a menus.base.NavigationNode represents a django CMS Page. Firstly, some nodes may represent objects from other applications. Secondly, you can’t expect to be able to access Page objects via NavigationNodes. To check if node represents a CMS Page, check for is_page in menus.base.NavigationNode.attr and that it is True.

Menu system logic¶

Let’s look at an example using the {% show_menu %} template tag. It will be different for other template tags, and your applications might have their own menu classes. But this should help explain what’s going on and what the menu system is doing.

One thing to understand is that the system passes around a list of nodes, doing various things to it.

Many of the methods below pass this list of nodes to the ones it calls, and return them to the ones that they were in turn called by.

Don’t forget that show_menu recurses - so it will do all of the below for each level in the menu.

{% show_menu %} - the template tag in the template
- menus.templatetags.menu_tags.ShowMenu.get_context()
  
  menus.menu_pool.MenuPool.get_nodes()
  
  menus.menu_pool.MenuPool.discover_menus() checks every application’s cms_menus.py, and registers:
  
  Menu classes, placing them in the self.menus dict
  
  Modifier classes, placing them in the self.modifiers list
  
  menus.menu_pool.MenuPool._build_nodes()
  
  checks the cache to see if it should return cached nodes
  
  loops over the Menus in self.menus (note: by default the only generator is cms.menu.CMSMenu); for each:
  
  call its menus.base.Menu.get_nodes() - the menu generator
  
  menus.menu_pool._build_nodes_inner_for_one_menu()
  
  adds all nodes into a big list
  
  menus.menu_pool.MenuPool.apply_modifiers()
  
  menus.menu_pool.MenuPool._mark_selected()
  
  loops over each node, comparing its URL with the request.path_info, and marks the best match as selected
  
  loops over the Modifiers in self.modifiers calling each one’s modify() with post_cut=False. The default Modifiers are:
  
  cms.menu.NavExtender
  
  cms.menu.SoftRootCutter removes all nodes below the appropriate soft root
  
  menus.modifiers.Marker loops over all nodes; finds selected, marks its ancestors, siblings and children
  
  menus.modifiers.AuthVisibility removes nodes that require authorisation to see
  
  menus.modifiers.Level loops over all nodes; for each one that is a root node (level == 0) passes it to:
  
  mark_levels() recurses over a node’s descendants marking their levels
  
  we’re now back in menus.templatetags.menu_tags.ShowMenu.get_context() again
  
  if we have been provided a root_id, get rid of any nodes other than its descendants
  
  menus.templatetags.menu_tags.cut_levels() removes nodes from the menu according to the arguments provided by the template tag
  
  menus.menu_pool.MenuPool.apply_modifiers() with post_cut = True loops over all the Modifiers again
  
  cms.menu.NavExtender
  
  cms.menu.SoftRootCutter
  
  menus.modifiers.Marker
  
  menus.modifiers.AuthVisibility
  
  menus.modifiers.Level:
  
  menus.modifiers.Level.mark_levels()
  
  return the nodes to the context in the variable children

Publishing¶

Each published page in the CMS exists in as two cms.Page instances: public and draft.

Until it’s published, only the draft version exists.

The staff users generally use the draft version to edit content and change settings for the pages. None of these changes are visible on the public site until the page is published.

When a page is published, the page must also have all parent pages published in order to become available on the web site. If a parent page is not yet published, the page goes into a “pending” state. It will be automatically published once the parent page is published.

This enables you to edit an entire subsection of the website, publishing it only once all the work is complete.

Code and Pages¶

When handling cms.Page in code, you’ll generally want to deal with draft instances.

Draft pages are the ones you interact with in the admin, and in draft mode in the CMS frontend. When a draft page is published, a public version is created and all titles, placeholders and plugins are copied to the public version.

The cms.Page model has a publisher_is_draft field, that’s True for draft versions. Use a filter:

``publisher_is_draft=True``

to get hold of these draft Page instances.

Serving content in multiple languages¶

Basic concepts¶

django CMS has a sophisticated multilingual capability. It is able to serve content in multiple languages, with fallbacks into other languages where translations have not been provided. It also has the facility for the user to set the preferred language and so on.

How django CMS determines the user’s preferred language¶

django CMS determines the user’s language the same way Django does it.

the language code prefix in the URL
the language set in the session
the language in the language cookie
the language that the browser says its user prefers

It uses the django built in capabilities for this.

By default no session and cookie are set. If you want to enable this use the cms.middleware.language.LanguageCookieMiddleware to set the cookie on every request.

How django CMS determines what language to serve¶

Once it has identified a user’s language, it will try to accommodate it using the languages set in CMS_LANGUAGES.

If fallbacks is set, and if the user’s preferred language is not available for that content, it will use the fallbacks specified for the language in CMS_LANGUAGES.

What django CMS shows in your menus¶

If hide_untranslated is True (the default) then pages that aren’t translated into the desired language will not appear in the menu.

Internationalisation¶

Multilingual URLs¶

If you use more than one language, django CMS urls, including the admin URLS, need to be referenced via i18n_patterns(). For more information about this see the official Django documentation on the subject.

Here’s an example of urls.py:

from django.conf import settings
from django.conf.urls import include, url
from django.contrib import admin
from django.conf.urls.i18n import i18n_patterns
from django.contrib.staticfiles.urls import staticfiles_urlpatterns

admin.autodiscover()

urlpatterns = [
    url(r'^jsi18n/(?P<packages>\S+?)/$', 'django.views.i18n.javascript_catalog'),
]

urlpatterns += staticfiles_urlpatterns()

# note the django CMS URLs included via i18n_patterns
urlpatterns += i18n_patterns('',
    url(r'^admin/', include(admin.site.urls)),
    url(r'^', include('cms.urls')),
)

Language Chooser¶

The language_chooser template tag will display a language chooser for the current page. You can modify the template in menu/language_chooser.html or provide your own template if necessary.

Example:

{% load menu_tags %}
{% language_chooser "myapp/language_chooser.html" %}

If you are in an apphook and have a detail view of an object you can set an object to the toolbar in your view. The cms will call get_absolute_url in the corresponding language for the language chooser:

Example:

class AnswerView(DetailView):
    def get(self, *args, **kwargs):
        self.object = self.get_object()
        if hasattr(self.request, 'toolbar'):
            self.request.toolbar.set_object(self.object)
        response = super(AnswerView, self).get(*args, **kwargs)
        return response

With this you can more easily control what url will be returned on the language chooser.

Note

If you have a multilingual objects be sure that you return the right url if you don’t have a translation for this language in get_absolute_url

page_language_url¶

This template tag returns the URL of the current page in another language.

Example:

{% page_language_url "de" %}

hide_untranslated¶

If you add a default directive to your CMS_LANGUAGES with a hide_untranslated to False all pages will be displayed in all languages even if they are not translated yet.

If hide_untranslated is True in your CMS_LANGUAGES and you are on a page that doesn’t yet have an English translation and you view the German version then the language chooser will redirect to /. The same goes for urls that are not handled by the cms and display a language chooser.

Automated slug generation Unicode characters¶

If your site has languages which use non-ASCII character sets, you might want to enable CMS_UNIHANDECODE_HOST and CMS_UNIHANDECODE_VERSION to get automated slugs for those languages too.

Permissions¶

In django CMS you can set three types of permissions:

View restrictions for restricting front-end view access to users
Page permissions for allowing staff users to only have rights on certain sections of certain sites
Mode permission which when left unset, restricts staff users to only editing, not adding new content

To enable features 1. and 2., settings.py requires:

CMS_PERMISSION = True

The third one is controlled by the “Can use Structure mode” Django permission.

View restrictions¶

View restrictions can be set-up from the View restrictions formset on any cms page. Once a page has at least one view restriction installed, only users with granted access will be able to see that page. Mind that this restriction is for viewing the page as an end-user (front-end view), not viewing the page in the admin interface!

View restrictions are also controlled by the CMS_PUBLIC_FOR setting. Possible values are all and staff. This setting decides if pages without any view restrictions are:

viewable by everyone – including anonymous users (all)
viewable by staff users only (staff)

Page permissions¶

After setting CMS_PERMISSION = True you will have three new models in the admin index:

Users (page)
User groups (page)
Pages global permissions

Users (page) / User groups (page)¶

Using Users (page) you can easily add users with permissions over CMS pages.

You would be able to create a user with the same set of permissions using the usual Auth.User model, but using Users (page) is more convenient.

A new user created using Users (page) with given page add/edit/delete rights will not be able to make any changes to pages straight away. The user must first be assigned to a set of pages over which he may exercise these rights. This is done using the Page permissions. formset on any page or by using Pages global permissions.

User groups (page) manages the same feature on the group level.

Page permissions¶

The Page permission formset has multiple checkboxes defining different permissions: can edit, can add, can delete, can change advanced settings, can publish, can move and can change permission. These define what kind of actions the user/group can do on the pages on which the permissions are being granted through the Grant on drop-down.

Can change permission refers to whether the user can change the permissions of his subordinate users. Bob is the subordinate of Alice if one of:

Bob was created by Alice
Bob has at least one page permission set on one of the pages on which Alice has the Can change permissions right

Note: Mind that even though a new user has permissions to change a page, that doesn’t give him permissions to add a plugin within that page. In order to be able to add/change/delete plugins on any page, you will need to go through the usual Auth.User model and give the new user permissions to each plugin you want him to have access to. Example: if you want the new user to be able to use the text plugin, you will need to give him the following rights: text | text | Can add text, text | text | Can change text, text | text | Can delete text.

Pages global permissions¶

Using the Pages global permissions model you can give a set of permissions to all pages in a set of sites.

Note

You always must set the sites managed py the global permissions, even if you only have one site.

Edit mode permission¶

Changed in version 3.1.

django CMS uses Structure and Content modes for different type of content editing; while the former allows full control over the plugins layout, positioning and to add new plugins to the page, the latter only allow editing existing plugins.

From version 3.1 the specific permission “Can use Structure mode” exists to permit access to Structure Mode. This allows defining a different level of permissions on the same content.

This permission also applies to PlaceholderField defined on models.

File Permissions¶

django CMS does not take care of and no responsibility for controlling access to files. Please make sure to use either a pre-built solution (like django-filer) or to roll your own.

Some commonly-used plugins¶

Warning

In version 3 of the CMS we removed all the plugins from the main repository into separate repositories to continue their development there. you are upgrading from a previous version. Please refer to Upgrading from previous versions

These are the recommended plugins to use with django CMS.

class djangocms_file.cms_plugins.FilePlugin¶

Important

See the note on The INSTALLED_APPS setting about ordering.

File¶

Available on GitHub (divio/djangocms-file) and on PyPi (djangocms-file).

Allows you to upload a file. A file-type icon will be assigned based on the file extension.

Please install it using pip or similar and be sure you have the following in the INSTALLED_APPS setting in your project’s settings.py file:

INSTALLED_APPS = (
    # ...
    'djangocms_file',
    # ...
)

You should take care that the directory defined by the configuration setting CMS_PAGE_MEDIA_PATH (by default cms_page_media/ relative to MEDIA_ROOT) is writeable by the user under which django will be running.

You might consider using django-filer with django filer CMS plugin and its cmsplugin_filer_file component instead.

Warning

The djangocms_file file plugin only works with local storages. If you need more advanced solutions, please look at alternative file plugins for the django CMS, such as django-filer.

GoogleMap¶

Available on GitHub (divio/djangocms-googlemap) and on PyPi (djangocms-googlemap).

Displays a map of an address on your page.

Both address and coordinates are supported to centre the map; zoom level and route planner can be set when adding/editing plugin in the admin.

New in version 2.3.2: width/height parameter has been added, so it’s no longer required to set plugin container size in CSS or template.

Changed in version 2.3.2: Zoom level is set via a select field which ensure only legal values are used.

Note

Due to the above change, level field is now marked as NOT NULL, and a data migration has been introduced to modify existing Googlemap plugin instance to set the default value if level if is NULL.

Please install it using pip or similar and be sure you have the following in the INSTALLED_APPS setting in your project’s settings.py file:

INSTALLED_APPS = (
    # ...
    'djangocms_googlemap',
    # ...
)

class djangocms_picture.cms_plugins.PicturePlugin¶

Picture¶

Available on GitHub (divio/djangocms-picture) and on PyPi (djangocms-picture).

Displays a picture in a page.

Please install it using pip or similar and be sure you have the following in the INSTALLED_APPS setting in your project’s settings.py file:

INSTALLED_APPS = (
    # ...
    'djangocms_picture',
    # ...
)

There are several solutions for Python and Django out there to automatically re-size your pictures, you can find some on Django Packages and compare them there.

In your project template directory create a folder called cms/plugins and in it create a file called picture.html. Here is an example picture.html template using easy-thumbnails:

{% load thumbnail %}

{% if link %}<a href="{{ link }}">{% endif %}
{% if placeholder == "content" %}
    <img src="{% thumbnail picture.image 300x600 %}"{% if picture.alt %} alt="{{ picture.alt }}"{% endif %} />
{% else %}
    {% if placeholder == "teaser" %}
        <img src="{% thumbnail picture.image 150x150 %}"{% if picture.alt %} alt="{{ picture.alt }}"{% endif %} />
    {% endif %}
{% endif %}
{% if link %}</a>{% endif %}

In this template the picture is scaled differently based on which placeholder it was placed in.

You should take care that the directory defined by the configuration setting CMS_PAGE_MEDIA_PATH (by default cms_page_media/ relative to MEDIA_ROOT) is writeable by the user under which django will be running.

Note

In order to improve clarity, some Picture fields have been omitted in the example template code.

Note

For more advanced use cases where you would like to upload your media to a central location, consider using django-filer with django filer CMS plugin and its cmsplugin_filer_image component instead.

Teaser¶

Available on GitHub (divio/djangocms-teaser) and on PyPi (djangocms-teaser).

Displays a teaser box for another page or a URL. A picture and a description can be added.

Please install it using pip or similar and be sure you have the following in the INSTALLED_APPS settings in your project’s settings.py file:

INSTALLED_APPS = (
    # ...
    'djangocms_teaser',
    # ...
)

You should take care that the directory defined by the configuration setting CMS_PAGE_MEDIA_PATH (by default cms_page_media/ relative to MEDIA_ROOT) is writeable by the user under which django will be running.

Note

For more advanced use cases where you would like to upload your media to a central location, consider using django-filer with django filer CMS plugin and its cmsplugin_filer_teaser component instead.

Text¶

Consider using djangocms-text-ckeditor for displaying text. You may of course use your preferred editor; others are available.

class djangocms_video.cms_plugins.VideoPlugin¶

Video¶

Available on GitHub (divio/djangocms-video) and on PyPi (djangocms-video).

Plays Video Files or YouTube / Vimeo Videos. Uses the OSFlashVideoPlayer. When uploading videos use either .flv files or H264 encoded video files.

Please install it using pip or similar and be sure you have the following in your project’s INSTALLED_APPS setting:

INSTALLED_APPS = (
    # ...
    'djangocms_video',
    # ...
)

There are some settings you can set in your settings.py to overwrite some default behaviour:

VIDEO_AUTOPLAY ((default: False)
VIDEO_AUTOHIDE (default: False)
VIDEO_FULLSCREEN (default: True)
VIDEO_LOOP (default: False)
VIDEO_AUTOPLAY (default: False)
VIDEO_BG_COLOR (default: "000000")
VIDEO_TEXT_COLOR (default: "FFFFFF")
VIDEO_SEEKBAR_COLOR (default: "13ABEC")
VIDEO_SEEKBARBG_COLOR (default: "333333")
VIDEO_LOADINGBAR_COLOR (default: "828282")
VIDEO_BUTTON_OUT_COLOR (default: "333333")
VIDEO_BUTTON_OVER_COLOR (default: "000000")
VIDEO_BUTTON_HIGHLIGHT_COLOR (default: "FFFFFF")

You should take care that the directory defined by the configuration setting CMS_PAGE_MEDIA_PATH (by default cms_page_media/ relative to MEDIA_ROOT) is writeable by the user under which django will be running.

Note

For more advanced use cases where you would like to upload your media to a central location, consider using django-filer with django filer CMS plugin and its cmsplugin_filer_video component instead.

class djangocms_twitter.cms_plugins.TwitterRecentEntriesPlugin¶

class djangocms_twitter.cms_plugins.TwitterSearchPlugin¶

Twitter¶

We recommend one of the following plugins:

Warning

These plugins are not currently compatible with Django 1.7.

class djangocms_inherit.cms_plugins.InheritPagePlaceholderPlugin¶

Inherit¶

Available on GitHub (divio/djangocms-inherit) and on PyPi (djangocms-inherit).

Displays all plugins of another page or another language. Great if you always need the same plugins on a lot of pages.

Please install it using pip or similar and be sure you have the following in your project’s INSTALLED_APPS setting:

INSTALLED_APPS = (
    # ...
    'djangocms_inherit',
    # ...
)

Warning

The inherit plugin cannot be used in non-cms placeholders.

Search and django CMS¶

For powerful full-text search within the django CMS, we suggest using Haystack together with django-cms-search.

Reference¶

Technical reference material.

Admin¶

class placeholderadmin.PlaceholderAdminMixin¶

APIs¶

Python APIs for creating and manipulating django CMS content.

These APIs are provided in order to provide a stable abstraction layer between internal django CMS functions and external code.

The APIs also make access to the functionality simpler, by providing more intuitive interface, with better input-checking.

Warning

None of the functions in this module make any security or permissions checks. They verify their input values for validity and make some basic sanity checks, but permissions checks should be implemented manually before calling any of these functions.

Warning

Due to potential circular dependency issues, we recommend that you import the APIs in the functions that use them. Use:

def my_function():
    from cms.api import api_function

    api_function(...)

rather than:

from cms.api import api_function

def my_function():
    api_function(...)

cms.api.create_page(title, template, language, menu_title=None, slug=None, apphook=None, apphook_namespace=None, redirect=None, meta_description=None, created_by='python-api', parent=None, publication_date=None, publication_end_date=None, in_navigation=False, soft_root=False, reverse_id=None, navigation_extenders=None, published=False, site=None, login_required=False, limit_visibility_in_menu=VISIBILITY_ALL, position="last-child", overwrite_url=None, xframe_options=Page.X_FRAME_OPTIONS_INHERIT, with_revision=False)¶

Creates a cms.models.Page instance and returns it. Also creates a cms.models.Title instance for the specified language.

Parameters:

title (string) – Title of the page
template (string) – Template to use for this page. Must be in CMS_TEMPLATES
language (string) – Language code for this page. Must be in LANGUAGES
menu_title (string) – Menu title for this page
slug (string) – Slug for the page, by default uses a slugified version of title
apphook (string or cms.app_base.CMSApp sub-class) – Application to hook on this page, must be a valid apphook
apphook_namespace (string) – Name of the apphook namespace
redirect (string) – URL redirect
meta_description (string) – Description of this page for SEO
created_by (string of django.contrib.auth.models.User instance) – User that is creating this page
parent (cms.models.Page instance) – Parent page of this page
publication_date (datetime) – Date to publish this page
publication_end_date (datetime) – Date to unpublish this page
in_navigation (bool) – Whether this page should be in the navigation or not
soft_root (bool) – Whether this page is a soft root or not
reverse_id (string) – Reverse ID of this page (for template tags)
navigation_extenders (string) – Menu to attach to this page. Must be a valid menu
published (bool) – Whether this page should be published or not
site (django.contrib.sites.models.Site instance) – Site to put this page on
login_required (bool) – Whether users must be logged in or not to view this page
limit_menu_visibility (VISIBILITY_ALL, VISIBILITY_USERS or VISIBILITY_ANONYMOUS) – Limits visibility of this page in the menu
position (string) – Where to insert this node if parent is given, must be 'first-child' or 'last-child'
overwrite_url (string) – Overwritten path for this page
xframe_options (int) – X Frame Option value for Clickjacking protection
with_revision (bool) – Whether to create a revision for the new page.

cms.api.create_title(language, title, page, menu_title=None, slug=None, redirect=None, meta_description=None, parent=None, overwrite_url=None, with_revision=False)¶

Creates a cms.models.Title instance and returns it.

Parameters:

language (string) – Language code for this page. Must be in LANGUAGES
title (string) – Title of the page
page (cms.models.Page instance) – The page for which to create this title
menu_title (string) – Menu title for this page
slug (string) – Slug for the page, by default uses a slugified version of title
redirect (string) – URL redirect
meta_description (string) – Description of this page for SEO
parent (cms.models.Page instance) – Used for automated slug generation
overwrite_url (string) – Overwritten path for this page
with_revision (bool) – Whether to create a revision for the new page.

cms.api.add_plugin(placeholder, plugin_type, language, position='last-child', target=None, **data)¶

Adds a plugin to a placeholder and returns it.

Parameters:

placeholder (cms.models.Placeholder instance) – Placeholder to add the plugin to
plugin_type (string or cms.plugin_base.CMSPluginBase sub-class, must be a valid plugin) – What type of plugin to add
language (string) – Language code for this plugin, must be in LANGUAGES
position (string) – Position to add this plugin to the placeholder, must be a valid django-treebeard pos value for treebeard.models.Node.add_sibling()
target – Parent plugin. Must be plugin instance
data – Data for the plugin type instance

cms.api.create_page_user(created_by, user, can_add_page=True, can_change_page=True, can_delete_page=True, can_recover_page=True, can_add_pageuser=True, can_change_pageuser=True, can_delete_pageuser=True, can_add_pagepermission=True, can_change_pagepermission=True, can_delete_pagepermission=True, grant_all=False)¶

Creates a page user for the user provided and returns that page user.

Parameters:	created_by (`django.contrib.auth.models.User` instance) – The user that creates the page user user (`django.contrib.auth.models.User` instance) – The user to create the page user from can_* (bool) – Permissions to give the user grant_all (bool) – Grant all permissions to the user

cms.api.assign_user_to_page(page, user, grant_on=ACCESS_PAGE_AND_DESCENDANTS, can_add=False, can_change=False, can_delete=False, can_change_advanced_settings=False, can_publish=False, can_change_permissions=False, can_move_page=False, grant_all=False)¶

Assigns a user to a page and gives them some permissions. Returns the cms.models.PagePermission object that gets created.

Parameters:	page (`cms.models.Page` instance) – The page to assign the user to user (`django.contrib.auth.models.User` instance) – The user to assign to the page grant_on (`ACCESS_PAGE`, `ACCESS_CHILDREN`, `ACCESS_DESCENDANTS` or `ACCESS_PAGE_AND_DESCENDANTS`) – Controls which pages are affected can_* – Permissions to grant grant_all (bool) – Grant all permissions to the user

cms.api.publish_page(page, user, language)¶

Publishes a page.

Parameters:	page (`cms.models.Page` instance) – The page to publish user (`django.contrib.auth.models.User` instance) – The user that performs this action language (string) – The target language to publish to

cms.api.publish_pages(include_unpublished=False, language=None, site=None)¶

Publishes multiple pages defined by parameters.

Parameters:

include_unpublished (bool) – Set to True to publish all drafts, including unpublished ones; otherwise, only already published pages will be republished
language (string) – If given, only pages in this language will be published; otherwise, all languages will be published
site (django.contrib.sites.models.Site instance) – Specify a site to publish pages for specified site only; if not specified pages from all sites are published

get_page_draft(page):

Returns the draft version of a page, regardless if the passed in page is a published version or a draft version.

Parameters:	page (`cms.models.Page` instance) – The page to get the draft version
Return page:	draft version of the page

copy_plugins_to_language(page, source_language, target_language, only_empty=True):

Copy the plugins to another language in the same page for all the page placeholders.

By default plugins are copied only if placeholder has no plugin for the target language; use only_empty=False to change this.

Warning

This function skips permissions checks

Parameters:	page (`cms.models.Page` instance) – the page to copy source_language (string) – The source language code, must be in `LANGUAGES` target_language (string) – The source language code, must be in `LANGUAGES` only_empty (bool) – if False, plugin are copied even if plugins exists in the target language (on a placeholder basis).
Return int:	number of copied plugins

Examples of usage can be found in:

Apphooks¶

class cms.app_base.CMSApp¶

CMSApp is the base class for django CMS apphooks.

_urls¶: list of urlconfs: example: _urls = ["myapp.urls"]

_menus¶: list of menu classes: example: _menus = [MyAppMenu]

name = None: name of the apphook (required)

app_name = None: name of the app, this enables Django namespaces support (optional)

app_config = None: configuration model (optional)

permissions = True: if set to true, apphook inherits permissions from the current page

exclude_permissions = []: list of application names to exclude from inheriting CMS permissions

get_configs()¶: Returns all the apphook configuration instances.

get_config(namespace)¶: Returns the apphook configuration instance linked to the given namespace

get_config_add_url()¶: Returns the url to add a new apphook configuration instance (usually the model admin add view)

get_menus(page, language, **kwargs)¶

Returns the menus for the apphook instance, eventually selected according to the given arguments.

By default it returns the menus assigned to cms.app_base.CMSApp._menus

If no page and language si provided, this method must return all the menus used by this apphook. Example:

if page and page.reverse_id == 'page1':
    return [Menu1]
elif page and page.reverse_id == 'page2':
    return [Menu2]
else:
    return [Menu1, Menu2]

Parameters:	page – page the apphook is attached to language – current site language
Returns:	list of menu classes

get_urls(page, language, **kwargs)¶

Returns the urlconfs for the apphook instance, eventually selected according to the given arguments.

By default it returns the urls assigned to cms.app_base.CMSApp._urls

This method must return a non empty list of urlconfs, even if no argument is passed.

Parameters:	page – page the apphook is attached to language – current site language
Returns:	list of urlconfs strings

Command Line Interface¶

You can invoke the django CMS command line interface using the cms Django command:

python manage.py cms

Informational commands¶

`cms list`¶

The list command is used to display information about your installation.

It has two sub-commands:

cms list plugins lists all plugins that are used in your project.
cms list apphooks lists all apphooks that are used in your project.

cms list plugins will issue warnings when it finds orphaned plugins (see cms delete-orphaned-plugins below).

`cms check`¶

Checks your configuration and environment.

Plugin and apphook management commands¶

`cms delete-orphaned-plugins`¶

Warning

The delete-orphaned-plugins command permanently deletes data from your database. You should make a backup of your database before using it!

Identifies and deletes orphaned plugins.

Orphaned plugins are ones that exist in the CMSPlugins table, but:

have a plugin_type that is no longer even installed
have no corresponding saved instance in that particular plugin type’s table

Such plugins will cause problems when trying to use operations that need to copy pages (and therefore plugins), which includes cms moderator on as well as page copy operations in the admin.

It is recommended to run cms list plugins periodically, and cms delete-orphaned-plugins when required.

`cms uninstall`¶

The uninstall subcommand can be used to make uninstalling a CMS plugin or an apphook easier.

It has two sub-commands:

cms uninstall plugins <plugin name> [<plugin name 2> [...]] uninstalls one or several plugins by removing them from all pages where they are used. Note that the plugin name should be the name of the class that is registered in the django CMS. If you are unsure about the plugin name, use the cms list to see a list of installed plugins.
cms uninstall apphooks <apphook name> [<apphook name 2> [...]] uninstalls one or several apphooks by removing them from all pages where they are used. Note that the apphook name should be the name of the class that is registered in the django CMS. If you are unsure about the apphook name, use the cms list to see a list of installed apphooks.

Warning

The uninstall commands permanently delete data from your database. You should make a backup of your database before using them!

`cms copy`¶

The copy command is used to copy content from one language or site to another.

It has two sub-commands:

cms copy lang copy content to a given language.
cms copy site copy pages and content to a given site.

`cms copy lang`¶

The copy lang subcommand can be used to copy content (titles and plugins) from one language to another. By default the subcommand copy content from the current site (e.g. the value of SITE_ID) and only if the target placeholder has no content for the specified language; using the defined options you can change this.

You must provide two arguments:

--from-lang: the language to copy the content from;
--to-lang: the language to copy the content to.

It accepts the following options

--force: set to copy content even if a placeholder already has content; if set, copied content will be appended to the original one;
--site: specify a SITE_ID to operate on sites different from the current one;
--verbosity: set for more verbose output.
--skip-content: if set, content is not copied, and the command will only create titles in the given language.

Example:

cms copy lang --from-lang=en --to-lang=de --force --site=2 --verbosity=2

`cms copy site`¶

The copy site subcommand can be used to copy content (pages and plugins) from one site to another. The subcommand copy content from the from-site to to-site; please note that static placeholders are copied as they are shared across sites. The whole source tree is copied, in the root of the target website. Existing pages on the target website are not modified.

You must provide two arguments:

--from-site: the site to copy the content from;
--to-site: the site to copy the content to.

Example:

cms copy site --from-site=1 --to-site=2

Moderation commands¶

`cms moderator`¶

If you migrate from an earlier version, you should use the cms moderator on command to ensure that your published pages are up to date, whether or not you used moderation in the past.

Warning

This command alters data in your database. You should make a backup of your database before using it! Never run this command without first checking for orphaned plugins, using the cms list plugins command, and if necessary delete-orphaned-plugins. Running cms moderator with orphaned plugins will fail and leave bad data in your database.

`cms publisher-publish`¶

If you want to publish many pages at once, this command can help you. By default, this command publishes drafts for all public pages.

It accepts the following options

--unpublished: set to publish all drafts, including unpublished ones; if not set, only already published pages will be republished.
-l, --language: specify a language code to publish pages in only one language; if not specified, this command publishes all page languages;
--site: specify a site id to publish pages for specified site only; if not specified, this command publishes pages for all sites;

Example:

#publish drafts for public pages in all languages
cms publisher-publish

#publish all drafts in all pages
cms publisher-publish --unpublished

#publish drafts for public pages in deutsch
cms publisher-publish --language=de

#publish all drafts in deutsch
cms publisher-publish --unpublished --language=de

#publish all drafts in deutsch, but only for site with id=2
cms publisher-publish --unpublished --language=de --site=2

Warning

This command publishes drafts. You should review drafts before using this command, because they will become public.

Maintenance and repair¶

`fix-tree`¶

Occasionally, the pages and plugins tree can become corrupted. Typical symptoms include problems when trying to copy or delete plugins or pages.

This commands will fix small corruptions by recalculating the tree information from the other parameters.

In django CMS versions prior to 3.1, we used Django MPTT before adopting Django Treebeard - this command is similar to the old fix-mptt command.

Forms¶

class fields.PageSelectFormField¶: Behaves like a django.forms.ModelChoiceField field for the cms.models.Page model, but displays itself as a split field with a select drop-down for the site and one for the page. It also indents the page names based on what level they’re on, so that the page select drop-down is easier to use. This takes the same arguments as django.forms.ModelChoiceField.

class fields.PageSmartLinkField¶

A field making use of cms.forms.widgets.PageSmartLinkWidget. This field will offer you a list of matching internal pages as you type. You can either pick one or enter an arbitrary URL to create a non existing entry. Takes a placeholder_text argument to define the text displayed inside the input before you type.

The widget uses an ajax request to try to find pages match. It will try to find case insensitive matches amongst public and published pages on the title, path, page_title, menu_title fields.

Models¶

class cms.models.Page¶: A Page is the basic unit of site structure in django CMS. The CMS uses a hierachical page model: each page stands in relation to other pages as parent, child or sibling.

class cms.models.Title¶

class cms.models.Placeholder¶: Placeholders can be filled with plugins, which store or generate content.

class cms.models.CMSPlugin¶

Model fields¶

class cms.models.fields.PageField¶: This is a foreign key field to the cms.models.Page model that defaults to the cms.forms.fields.PageSelectFormField form field when rendered in forms. It has the same API as the django.db.models.ForeignKey but does not require the othermodel argument.

class cms.models.fields.PlaceholderField¶: A foreign key field to the cms.models.Placeholder model.

Navigation¶

There are four template tags for use in the templates that are connected to the menu:

show_menu
show_menu_below_id
show_sub_menu
show_breadcrumb

To use any of these template tags, you need to have {% load menu_tags %} in your template before the line on which you call the template tag.

Note

Please note that menus live in the menus application, which though tightly coupled to the cms application exists independently of it. Menus are usable by any application, not just by django CMS.

show_menu¶

The show_menu tag renders the navigation of the current page. You can overwrite the appearance and the HTML if you add a menu/menu.html template to your project or edit the one provided with django CMS. show_menu takes six optional parameters: start_level, end_level, extra_inactive, extra_active, namespace and root_id.

The first two parameters, start_level (default=0) and end_level (default=100) specify from which level the navigation should be rendered and at which level it should stop. If you have home as a root node (i.e. level 0) and don’t want to display the root node(s), set start_level to 1.

The third parameter, extra_inactive (default=0), specifies how many levels of navigation should be displayed if a node is not a direct ancestor or descendant of the current active node.

The fourth parameter, extra_active (default=100), specifies how many levels of descendants of the currently active node should be displayed.

The fifth parameter, namespace specifies the namespace of the menu. if empty will use all namespaces.

The sixth parameter root_id specifies the id of the root node.

You can supply a template parameter to the tag.

Some Examples¶

Complete navigation (as a nested list):

{% load menu_tags %}
<ul>
    {% show_menu 0 100 100 100 %}
</ul>

Navigation with active tree (as a nested list):

<ul>
    {% show_menu 0 100 0 100 %}
</ul>

Navigation with only one active extra level:

<ul>
    {% show_menu 0 100 0 1 %}
</ul>

Level 1 navigation (as a nested list):

<ul>
    {% show_menu 1 %}
</ul>

Navigation with a custom template:

{% show_menu 0 100 100 100 "myapp/menu.html" %}

show_menu_below_id¶

If you have set an id in the advanced settings of a page, you can display the sub-menu of this page with a template tag. For example, we have a page called meta that is not displayed in the navigation and that has the id “meta”:

<ul>
    {% show_menu_below_id "meta" %}
</ul>

You can give it the same optional parameters as show_menu:

<ul>
    {% show_menu_below_id "meta" 0 100 100 100 "myapp/menu.html" %}
</ul>

Unlike show_menu, however, soft roots will not affect the menu when using show_menu_below_id.

show_sub_menu¶

Displays the sub menu of the current page (as a nested list).

The first argument, levels (default=100), specifies how many levels deep the sub menu should be displayed.

The second argument, root_level (default=None), specifies at what level, if any, the menu should have its root. For example, if root_level is 0 the menu will start at that level regardless of what level the current page is on.

The third argument, nephews (default=100), specifies how many levels of nephews (children of siblings) are shown.

Fourth argument, template (default=menu/sub_menu.html), is the template used by the tag; if you want to use a different template you must supply default values for root_level and nephews.

Examples:

<ul>
    {% show_sub_menu 1 %}
</ul>

Rooted at level 0:

<ul>
    {% show_sub_menu 1 0 %}
</ul>

Or with a custom template:

<ul>
    {% show_sub_menu 1 None 100 "myapp/submenu.html" %}
</ul>

Properties of Navigation Nodes in templates¶

{{ node.is_leaf_node }}

Is it the last in the tree? If true it doesn’t have any children.

{{ node.level }}

The level of the node. Starts at 0.

{{ node.menu_level }}

The level of the node from the root node of the menu. Starts at 0. If your menu starts at level 1 or you have a “soft root” (described in the next section) the first node would still have 0 as its menu_level.

{{ node.get_absolute_url }}

The absolute URL of the node, without any protocol, domain or port.

{{ node.title }}

The title in the current language of the node.

{{ node.selected }}

If true this node is the current one selected/active at this URL.

{{ node.ancestor }}

If true this node is an ancestor of the current selected node.

{{ node.sibling }}

If true this node is a sibling of the current selected node.

{{ node.descendant }}

If true this node is a descendant of the current selected node.

{{ node.soft_root }}

If true this node is a soft root. A page can be marked as a soft root in its ‘Advanced Settings’.

Menu system classes and function¶

`menu` application¶

class menus.base.Menu¶

The base class for all menu-generating classes.

get_nodes(self, request)¶: Each sub-class of Menu should return a list of NavigationNode instances.

class menus.base.Modifier¶

The base class for all menu-modifying classes. A modifier add, removes or changes NavigationNodes in the list.

modify(self, request, nodes, namespace, root_id, post_cut, breadcrumb)¶: Each sub-class of Modifier should implement a modify() method.

class menus.menu_pool.MenuPool¶

get_nodes()¶

discover_menus()¶

apply_modifiers()¶

_build_nodes()¶

_mark_selected()¶

menus.menu_pool._build_nodes_inner_for_one_menu()¶

menus.templatetags.menu_tags.cut_levels()¶

class menus.templatetags.menu_tags.ShowMenu¶

get_context()¶

class menus.base.NavigationNode(title, url, id[, parent_id=None][, parent_namespace=None][, attr=None][, visible=True])¶

Each node in a menu tree is represented by a NavigationNode instance.

Parameters:

title (string) – The title to display this menu item with.
url (string) – The URL associated with this menu item.
id – Unique (for the current tree) ID of this item.
parent_id – Optional, ID of the parent item.
parent_namespace – Optional, namespace of the parent.
attr (dict) – Optional, dictionary of additional information to store on this node.
visible (bool) – Optional, defaults to True, whether this item is visible or not.

attr¶

A dictionary, provided in order that arbitrary attributes may be added to the node - placing them directly on the node itself could cause a clash with an existing or future attribute.

An important key in this dictionary is is_page: if True, the node represents a django CMS Page object.

Nodes that represent CMS pages have the following keys in attr:

auth_required (bool) – is authentication required to access this page
is_page (bool) – Always True
navigation_extenders (list) – navigation extenders connected to this node (including Apphooks)
redirect_url (str) – redirect URL of page (if any)
reverse_id (str) – unique identifier for the page
soft_root (bool) – whether page is a soft root
visible_for_authenticated (bool) – visible for authenticated users
visible_for_anonymous (bool) – visible for anonymous users

get_descendants()¶: Returns a list of all children beneath the current menu item.

get_ancestors()¶: Returns a list of all parent items, excluding the current menu item.

get_absolute_url()¶: Utility method to return the URL associated with this menu item, primarily to follow naming convention asserted by Django.

get_menu_title()¶: Utility method to return the associated title, using the same naming convention used by cms.models.Page.

attr

A dictionary, provided in order that arbitrary attributes may be added to the node - placing them directly on the node itself could cause a clash with an existing or future attribute.

An important key in this dictionary is is_page: if True, the node represents a django CMS Page object.

class menus.modifiers.Marker¶

class menus.modifiers.AuthVisibility¶

class menus.modifiers.Level¶

mark_levels()¶

`cms` application¶

class cms.menu.CMSMenu¶: Subclass of menus.base.Menu. Its get_nodes() creates a list of NavigationNodes based on Page objects.

class cms.menu.NavExtender¶

class cms.menu.SoftRootCutter¶

class cms.menu_bases.CMSAttachMenu¶

Permissions¶

class cms.models.PagePermission¶

cms.models.ACCESS_PAGE¶

cms.models.ACCESS_CHILDREN¶

cms.models.ACCESS_DESCENDANTS¶

cms.models.ACCESS_PAGE_AND_DESCENDANTS¶

Plugins¶

class cms.plugin_base.CMSPluginBase¶

Inherits django.contrib.admin.ModelAdmin and in most respects behaves like a normal sub-class. Note however that some attributes of ModelAdmin simply won’t make sense in the context of a Plugin.

Attributes

admin_preview¶

Default: False

If True, displays a preview in the admin.

allow_children¶

Default: False

Allows this plugin to have child plugins - other plugins placed inside it?

If True you need to ensure that your plugin can render its children in the plugin template. For example:

{% load cms_tags %}
<div class="myplugin">
    {{ instance.my_content }}
    {% for plugin in instance.child_plugin_instances %}
        {% render_plugin plugin %}
    {% endfor %}
</div>

instance.child_plugin_instances provides access to all the plugin’s children. They are pre-filled and ready to use. The child plugins should be rendered using the {% render_plugin %} template tag.

cache¶

Default: CMS_PLUGIN_CACHE

Is this plugin cacheable? If your plugin displays content based on the user or request or other dynamic properties set this to False.

If present and set to False, the plugin will prevent the caching of the resulting page.

Important

Setting this to False will effectively disable the CMS page cache and all upstream caches for pages where the plugin appears. This may be useful in certain cases but for general cache management, consider using the much more capable get_cache_expiration().

Warning

If you disable a plugin cache be sure to restart the server and clear the cache afterwards.

change_form_template¶

Default: admin/cms/page/plugin_change_form.html

The template used to render the form when you edit the plugin.

Example:

class MyPlugin(CMSPluginBase):
    model = MyModel
    name = _("My Plugin")
    render_template = "cms/plugins/my_plugin.html"
    change_form_template = "admin/cms/page/plugin_change_form.html"

Settings and constants¶

django CMS has a number of settings to configure its behaviour. These should be available in your settings.py file.

The `INSTALLED_APPS` setting¶

The ordering of items in INSTALLED_APPS matters. Entries for applications with plugins should come after cms.

The `MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES` setting¶

`cms.middleware.utils.ApphookReloadMiddleware`¶

Adding ApphookReloadMiddleware to the MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES tuple will enable automatic server restarts when changes are made to apphook configurations. It should be placed as near to the top of the classes as possible.

Note

This has been tested and works in many production environments and deployment configurations, but we haven’t been able to test it with all possible set-ups. Please file an issue if you discover one where it fails.

Custom User Requirements¶

When using a custom user model (i.e. the AUTH_USER_MODEL Django setting), there are a few requirements that must be met.

django CMS expects a user model with at minimum the following fields: email, password, is_active, is_staff, and is_superuser. Additionally, it should inherit from AbstractBaseUser and PermissionsMixin (or AbstractUser), and must define one field as the USERNAME_FIELD (see Django documentation for more details) and define a get_full_name() method.

The models must also be editable via Django’s admin and have an admin class registered.

Additionally, the application in which the model is defined must be loaded before cms in INSTALLED_APPS.

Note

In most cases, it is better to create a UserProfile model with a one to one relationship to auth.User rather than creating a custom user model. Custom user models are only necessary if you intended to alter the default behaviour of the User model, not simply extend it.

Additionally, if you do intend to use a custom user model, it is generally advisable to do so only at the beginning of a project, before the database is created.

Required Settings¶

CMS_TEMPLATES¶

default: () (Not a valid setting!)

A list of templates you can select for a page.

Example:

CMS_TEMPLATES = (
    ('base.html', gettext('default')),
    ('2col.html', gettext('2 Column')),
    ('3col.html', gettext('3 Column')),
    ('extra.html', gettext('Some extra fancy template')),
)

Note

All templates defined in CMS_TEMPLATES must contain at least the js and css sekizai namespaces. For more information, see Static files handling with sekizai.

Note

Alternatively you can use CMS_TEMPLATES_DIR to define a directory containing templates for django CMS.

Warning

django CMS requires some special templates to function correctly. These are provided within cms/templates/cms. You are strongly advised not to use cms as a directory name for your own project templates.

Basic Customisation¶

CMS_TEMPLATE_INHERITANCE¶

default: True

Enables the inheritance of templates from parent pages.

When enabled, pages’ Template options will include a new default: Inherit from the parent page (unless the page is a root page).

CMS_TEMPLATES_DIR¶

default: None

Instead of explicitly providing a set of templates via CMS_TEMPLATES a directory can be provided using this configuration.

CMS_TEMPLATES_DIR can be set to the (absolute) path of the templates directory, or set to a dictionary with SITE_ID: template path items:

CMS_TEMPLATES_DIR: {
    1: '/absolute/path/for/site/1/',
    2: '/absolute/path/for/site/2/',
}

The provided directory is scanned and all templates in it are loaded as templates for django CMS.

Template loaded and their names can be customised using the templates dir as a python module, by creating a __init__.py file in the templates directory. The file contains a single TEMPLATES dictionary with the list of templates as keys and template names as values:::

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
from django.utils.translation import ugettext_lazy as _
TEMPLATES = {
    'col_two.html': _('Two columns'),
    'col_three.html': _('Three columns'),
}

Being a normal python file, templates labels can be passed through gettext for translation.

Note

As templates are still loaded by the Django template loader, the given directory must be reachable by the template loading system. Currently filesystem and app_directory loader schemas are tested and supported.

CMS_PLACEHOLDER_CONF¶

default: {}

Used to configure placeholders. If not given, all plugins will be available in all placeholders.

Example:

CMS_PLACEHOLDER_CONF = {
    None: {
        "plugins": ['TextPlugin'],
        'excluded_plugins': ['InheritPlugin'],
    }
    'content': {
        'plugins': ['TextPlugin', 'PicturePlugin'],
        'text_only_plugins': ['LinkPlugin'],
        'extra_context': {"width":640},
        'name': gettext("Content"),
        'language_fallback': True,
        'default_plugins': [
            {
                'plugin_type': 'TextPlugin',
                'values': {
                    'body':'<p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet...</p>',
                },
            },
        ],
        'child_classes': {
            'TextPlugin': ['PicturePlugin', 'LinkPlugin'],
        },
        'parent_classes': {
            'LinkPlugin': ['TextPlugin'],
        },
    },
    'right-column': {
        "plugins": ['TeaserPlugin', 'LinkPlugin'],
        "extra_context": {"width": 280},
        'name': gettext("Right Column"),
        'limits': {
            'global': 2,
            'TeaserPlugin': 1,
            'LinkPlugin': 1,
        },
        'plugin_modules': {
            'LinkPlugin': 'Extra',
        },
        'plugin_labels': {
            'LinkPlugin': 'Add a link',
        },
    },
    'base.html content': {
        "plugins": ['TextPlugin', 'PicturePlugin', 'TeaserPlugin'],
        'inherit': 'content',
    },
}

You can combine template names and placeholder names to define plugins in a granular fashion, as shown above with base.html content.

Configuration is retrieved in the following order:

CMS_PLACEHOLDER_CONF[‘template placeholder’]
CMS_PLACEHOLDER_CONF[‘placeholder’]
CMS_PLACEHOLDER_CONF[‘template’]
CMS_PLACEHOLDER_CONF[None]

The first CMS_PLACEHOLDER_CONF key that matches for the required configuration attribute is used.

E.g: given the example above if the plugins configuration is retrieved for the content placeholder in a page using the base.html template, the value ['TextPlugin', 'PicturePlugin', 'TeaserPlugin'] will be returned as 'base.html content' matches; if the same configuration is retrieved for the content placeholder in a page using fullwidth.html template, the returned value will be ['TextPlugin', 'PicturePlugin']. If plugins configuration is retrieved for sidebar_left placeholder, ['TextPlugin'] from CMS_PLACEHOLDER_CONF key None will be returned.

plugins: A list of plugins that can be added to this placeholder. If not supplied, all plugins can be selected.
text_only_plugins: A list of additional plugins available only in the TextPlugin, these plugins can’t be added directly to this placeholder.
excluded_plugins: A list of plugins that will not be added to the given placeholder; this takes precedence over plugins configuration: if a plugin is present in both lists, it will not be available in the placeholder. This is basically a way to blacklist a plugin: even if registered, it will not be available in the placeholder. If set on the None (default) key, the plugins will not be available in any placeholder (except the excluded_plugins configuration is overridden in more specific CMS_PLACEHOLDER_KEYS.
extra_context: Extra context that plugins in this placeholder receive.
name: The name displayed in the Django admin. With the gettext stub, the name can be internationalised.
limits: Limit the number of plugins that can be placed inside this placeholder. Dictionary keys are plugin names and the values are their respective limits. Special case: global - Limit the absolute number of plugins in this placeholder regardless of type (takes precedence over the type-specific limits).
language_fallback: When True, if the placeholder has no plugin for the current language it falls back to the fallback languages as specified in CMS_LANGUAGES. Defaults to True since version 3.1.

default_plugins

You can specify the list of default plugins which will be automatically added when the placeholder will be created (or rendered). Each element of the list is a dictionary with following keys :

plugin_type: The plugin type to add to the placeholder Example : TextPlugin
values: Dictionary to use for the plugin creation. It depends on the plugin_type. See the documentation of each plugin type to see which parameters are required and available. Example for a text plugin: {'body':'<p>Lorem ipsum</p>'} Example for a link plugin: {'name':'Django-CMS','url':'https://www.django-cms.org'}
children: It is a list of dictionaries to configure default plugins to add as children for the current plugin (it must accepts children). Each dictionary accepts same args than dictionaries of default_plugins : plugin_type, values, children (yes, it is recursive).

Complete example of default_plugins usage:

CMS_PLACEHOLDER_CONF = {
    'content': {
        'name' : _('Content'),
        'plugins': ['TextPlugin', 'LinkPlugin'],
        'default_plugins':[
            {
                'plugin_type':'TextPlugin',
                'values':{
                    'body':'<p>Great websites : %(_tag_child_1)s and %(_tag_child_2)s</p>'
                },
                'children':[
                    {
                        'plugin_type':'LinkPlugin',
                        'values':{
                            'name':'django',
                            'url':'https://www.djangoproject.com/'
                        },
                    },
                    {
                        'plugin_type':'LinkPlugin',
                        'values':{
                            'name':'django-cms',
                            'url':'https://www.django-cms.org'
                        },
                        # If using LinkPlugin from djangocms-link which
                        # accepts children, you could add some grandchildren :
                        # 'children' : [
                        #     ...
                        # ]
                    },
                ]
            },
        ]
    }
}

plugin_modules

A dictionary of plugins and custom module names to group plugin in the toolbar UI.

plugin_labels

A dictionary of plugins and custom labels to show in the toolbar UI.

child_classes

A dictionary of plugin names with lists describing which plugins may be placed inside each plugin. If not supplied, all plugins can be selected.

parent_classes

A dictionary of plugin names with lists describing which plugins may contain each plugin. If not supplied, all plugins can be selected.

require_parent

A Boolean indication whether that plugin requires another plugin as parent or not.

inherit

Placeholder name or template name + placeholder name which inherit. In the example, the configuration for base.html content inherits from content and just overwrites the plugins setting to allow TeaserPlugin, thus you have not to duplicate the configuration of content.

CMS_PLUGIN_CONTEXT_PROCESSORS¶

default: []

A list of plugin context processors. Plugin context processors are callables that modify all plugins’ context before rendering. See Custom Plugins for more information.

CMS_PLUGIN_PROCESSORS¶

default: []

A list of plugin processors. Plugin processors are callables that modify all plugins’ output after rendering. See Custom Plugins for more information.

CMS_APPHOOKS¶

default:: ()

A list of import paths for cms.app_base.CMSApp sub-classes.

By default, apphooks are auto-discovered in applications listed in all INSTALLED_APPS, by trying to import their cms_app module.

When CMS_APPHOOKS is set, auto-discovery is disabled.

Example:

CMS_APPHOOKS = (
    'myapp.cms_app.MyApp',
    'otherapp.cms_app.MyFancyApp',
    'sampleapp.cms_app.SampleApp',
)

I18N and L10N¶

CMS_LANGUAGES¶

default: Value of LANGUAGES converted to this format

Defines the languages available in django CMS.

Example:

CMS_LANGUAGES = {
    1: [
        {
            'code': 'en',
            'name': gettext('English'),
            'fallbacks': ['de', 'fr'],
            'public': True,
            'hide_untranslated': True,
            'redirect_on_fallback':False,
        },
        {
            'code': 'de',
            'name': gettext('Deutsch'),
            'fallbacks': ['en', 'fr'],
            'public': True,
        },
        {
            'code': 'fr',
            'name': gettext('French'),
            'public': False,
        },
    ],
    2: [
        {
            'code': 'nl',
            'name': gettext('Dutch'),
            'public': True,
            'fallbacks': ['en'],
        },
    ],
    'default': {
        'fallbacks': ['en', 'de', 'fr'],
        'redirect_on_fallback':True,
        'public': True,
        'hide_untranslated': False,
    }
}

Note

Make sure you only define languages which are also in LANGUAGES.

Warning

Make sure you use language codes (en-us) and not locale names (en_US) here and in LANGUAGES. Use check command to check for correct syntax.

CMS_LANGUAGES has different options where you can define how different languages behave, with granular control.

On the first level you can set values for each SITE_ID. In the example above we define two sites. The first site has 3 languages (English, German and French) and the second site has only Dutch.

The default node defines default behaviour for all languages. You can overwrite the default settings with language-specific properties. For example we define hide_untranslated as False globally, but the English language overwrites this behaviour.

Every language node needs at least a code and a name property. code is the ISO 2 code for the language, and name is the verbose name of the language.

Note

With a gettext() lambda function you can make language names translatable. To enable this add gettext = lambda s: s at the beginning of your settings file.

What are the properties a language node can have?

code¶

String. RFC5646 code of the language.

example: "en".

Note

Is required for every language.

name¶

String. The verbose name of the language.

Note

Is required for every language.

public¶

Determines whether this language is accessible in the frontend. You may want for example to keep a language private until your content has been fully translated.

type: Boolean
default: True

fallbacks¶

A list of alternative languages, in order of preference, that are to be used if a page is not translated yet..

example: ['de', 'fr']
default: []

hide_untranslated¶

Hide untranslated pages in menus

type: Boolean
default: True

redirect_on_fallback¶

Determines behaviour when the preferred language is not available. If True, will redirect to the URL of the same page in the fallback language. If False, the content will be displayed in the fallback language, but there will be no redirect.

Note that this applies to the fallback behaviour of pages. Starting for 3.1 placeholders will default to the same behaviour. If you do not want a placeholder to follow a page’s fallback behaviour, you must set its language_fallback to False in CMS_PLACEHOLDER_CONF, above.

type: Boolean
default: True

Unicode support for automated slugs¶

django CMS supports automated slug generation from page titles that contain Unicode characters via the unihandecode.js project. To enable support for unihandecode.js, at least CMS_UNIHANDECODE_HOST and CMS_UNIHANDECODE_VERSION must be set.

CMS_UNIHANDECODE_HOST¶

default: None

Must be set to the URL where you host your unihandecode.js files. For licensing reasons, django CMS does not include unihandecode.js.

If set to None, the default, unihandecode.js is not used.

Note

Unihandecode.js is a rather large library, especially when loading support for Japanese. It is therefore very important that you serve it from a server that supports gzip compression. Further, make sure that those files can be cached by the browser for a very long period.

CMS_UNIHANDECODE_VERSION¶

default: None

Must be set to the version number (eg '1.0.0') you want to use. Together with CMS_UNIHANDECODE_HOST this setting is used to build the full URLs for the javascript files. URLs are built like this: <CMS_UNIHANDECODE_HOST>-<CMS_UNIHANDECODE_VERSION>.<DECODER>.min.js.

CMS_UNIHANDECODE_DECODERS¶

default: ['ja', 'zh', 'vn', 'kr', 'diacritic']

If you add additional decoders to your CMS_UNIHANDECODE_HOST, you can add them to this setting.

CMS_UNIHANDECODE_DEFAULT_DECODER¶

default: 'diacritic'

The default decoder to use when unihandecode.js support is enabled, but the current language does not provide a specific decoder in CMS_UNIHANDECODE_DECODERS. If set to None, failing to find a specific decoder will disable unihandecode.js for this language.

Example¶

Add these to your project’s settings:

CMS_UNIHANDECODE_HOST = '/static/unihandecode/'
CMS_UNIHANDECODE_VERSION = '1.0.0'
CMS_UNIHANDECODE_DECODERS = ['ja', 'zh', 'vn', 'kr', 'diacritic']

Add the library files from GitHub ojii/unihandecode.js tree/dist to your static folder:

project/
    static/
        unihandecode/
            unihandecode-1.0.0.core.min.js
            unihandecode-1.0.0.diacritic.min.js
            unihandecode-1.0.0.ja.min.js
            unihandecode-1.0.0.kr.min.js
            unihandecode-1.0.0.vn.min.js
            unihandecode-1.0.0.zh.min.js

More documentation is available on unihandecode.js’ Read the Docs.

Media Settings¶

CMS_MEDIA_PATH¶

default: cms/

The path from MEDIA_ROOT to the media files located in cms/media/

CMS_MEDIA_ROOT¶

default: MEDIA_ROOT + CMS_MEDIA_PATH

The path to the media root of the cms media files.

CMS_MEDIA_URL¶

default: MEDIA_URL + CMS_MEDIA_PATH

The location of the media files that are located in cms/media/cms/

CMS_PAGE_MEDIA_PATH¶

default: 'cms_page_media/'

By default, django CMS creates a folder called cms_page_media in your static files folder where all uploaded media files are stored. The media files are stored in sub-folders numbered with the id of the page.

You need to ensure that the directory to which it points is writeable by the user under which Django will be running.

Advanced Settings¶

CMS_INTERNAL_IPS¶

default: []

By default CMS_INTERNAL_IPS is an empty list ([]).

If left as an empty list, this setting does not add any restrictions to the toolbar. However, if set, the toolbar will only appear for client IP addresses that are in this list.

This setting may also be set to an IpRangeList from the external package iptools. This package allows convenient syntax for defining complex IP address ranges.

The client IP address is obtained via the CMS_REQUEST_IP_RESOLVER in the cms.middleware.toolbar.ToolbarMiddleware middleware.

CMS_REQUEST_IP_RESOLVER¶

default: ‘cms.utils.request_ip_resolvers.default_request_ip_resolver’

This setting is used system-wide to provide a consistent and plug-able means of extracting a client IP address from the HTTP request. The default implementation should work for most project architectures, but if not, the administrator can provide their own method to handle the project’s specific circumstances.

The supplied method should accept a single argument request and return an IP address String.

CMS_PERMISSION¶

default: False

When enabled, 3 new models are provided in Admin:

Pages global permissions
User groups - page
Users - page

In the edit-view of the pages you can now assign users to pages and grant them permissions. In the global permissions you can set the permissions for users globally.

If a user has the right to create new users he can now do so in the “Users - page”, but he will only see the users he created. The users he created can also only inherit the rights he has. So if he only has been granted the right to edit a certain page all users he creates can, in turn, only edit this page. Naturally he can limit the rights of the users he creates even further, allowing them to see only a subset of the pages to which he is allowed access.

CMS_RAW_ID_USERS¶

default: False

This setting only applies if CMS_PERMISSION is True

The view restrictions and page permissions inlines on the cms.models.Page admin change forms can cause performance problems where there are many thousands of users being put into simple select boxes. If set to a positive integer, this setting forces the inlines on that page to use standard Django admin raw ID widgets rather than select boxes if the number of users in the system is greater than that number, dramatically improving performance.

Note

Using raw ID fields in combination with limit_choices_to causes errors due to excessively long URLs if you have many thousands of users (the PKs are all included in the URL of the popup window). For this reason, we only apply this limit if the number of users is relatively small (fewer than 500). If the number of users we need to limit to is greater than that, we use the usual input field instead unless the user is a CMS superuser, in which case we bypass the limit. Unfortunately, this means that non-superusers won’t see any benefit from this setting.

Changed in version 3.2.1:: CMS_RAW_ID_USERS also applies to GlobalPagePermission admin.

CMS_PUBLIC_FOR¶

default: all

Determines whether pages without any view restrictions are public by default or staff only. Possible values are all and staff.

CMS_CACHE_DURATIONS¶

This dictionary carries the various cache duration settings.

'content'¶

default: 60

Cache expiration (in seconds) for show_placeholder, page_url, placeholder and static_placeholder template tags.

Note

This settings was previously called CMS_CONTENT_CACHE_DURATION

'menus'¶

default: 3600

Cache expiration (in seconds) for the menu tree.

Note

This settings was previously called MENU_CACHE_DURATION

'permissions'¶

default: 3600

Cache expiration (in seconds) for view and other permissions.

CMS_CACHE_PREFIX¶

default: cms-

The CMS will prepend the value associated with this key to every cache access (set and get). This is useful when you have several django CMS installations, and you don’t want them to share cache objects.

Example:

CMS_CACHE_PREFIX = 'mysite-live'

Note

Django 1.3 introduced a site-wide cache key prefix. See Django’s own docs on cache key prefixing

CMS_PAGE_CACHE¶

default: True

Should the output of pages be cached? Takes the language, and time zone into account. Pages for logged in users are not cached. If the toolbar is visible the page is not cached as well.

CMS_PLACEHOLDER_CACHE¶

default: True

Should the output of the various placeholder template tags be cached? Takes the current language and time zone into account. If the toolbar is in edit mode or a plugin with cache=False is present the placeholders will not be cached.

CMS_PLUGIN_CACHE¶

default: True

Default value of the cache attribute of plugins. Should plugins be cached by default if not set explicitly?

Warning

If you disable the plugin cache be sure to restart the server and clear the cache afterwards.

CMS_MAX_PAGE_HISTORY_REVERSIONS¶

default: 15

Configures how many undo steps are saved in the db excluding publish steps. In the page admin there is a History button to revert to previous version of a page. In the past, databases using django-reversion could grow huge. To help address this issue, only a limited number of edit revisions will now be saved.

This setting declares how many edit revisions are saved in the database. By default the newest 15 edit revisions are kept.

CMS_MAX_PAGE_PUBLISH_REVERSIONS¶

default: 10

If django-reversion is installed everything you do with a page and all plugin changes will be saved in a revision.

In the page admin there is a History button to revert to previous version of a page. In the past, databases using django-reversion could grow huge. To help address this issue, only a limited number of published revisions will now be saved.

This setting declares how many published revisions are saved in the database. By default the newest 10 published revisions are kept; all others are deleted when you publish a page.

If set to 0 all published revisions are kept, but you will need to ensure that the revision table does not grow excessively large.

CMS_TOOLBARS¶

default: None

If defined, specifies the list of toolbar modifiers to be used to populate the toolbar as import paths. Otherwise, all available toolbars from both the CMS and the third-party apps will be loaded.

Example:

CMS_TOOLBARS = [
    # CMS Toolbars
    'cms.cms_toolbar.PlaceholderToolbar',
    'cms.cms_toolbar.BasicToolbar',
    'cms.cms_toolbar.PageToolbar',

    # third-party Toolbar
    'aldryn_blog.cms_toolbar.BlogToolbar',
]

CMS_DEFAULT_X_FRAME_OPTIONS¶

default: constants.X_FRAME_OPTIONS_INHERIT

This setting is the default value for a Page’s X Frame Options setting. This should be an integer preferably taken from the cms.constants e.g.

X_FRAME_OPTIONS_INHERIT
X_FRAME_OPTIONS_ALLOW
X_FRAME_OPTIONS_SAMEORIGIN
X_FRAME_OPTIONS_DENY

CMS_PAGE_WIZARD_DEFAULT_TEMPLATE¶

default: TEMPLATE_INHERITANCE_MAGIC

This is the path of the template used to create pages in the wizard. It must be one of the templates in CMS_TEMPLATES.

CMS_PAGE_WIZARD_CONTENT_PLACEHOLDER¶

default: None

When set to an editable, non-static placeholder that is available on the page template, the CMS page wizards will target the specified placeholder when adding any content supplied in the wizards’ “Content” field. If this is left unset, then the content will target the first suitable placeholder found on the page’s template.

CMS_PAGE_WIZARD_CONTENT_PLUGIN¶

default: TextPlugin

This is the name of the plugin created in the Page Wizard when the “Content” field is filled in. There should be no need to change it, unless you don’t use djangocms-text-ckeditor in your project.

CMS_PAGE_WIZARD_CONTENT_PLUGIN_BODY¶

default: body

This is the name of the body field in the plugin created in the Page Wizard when the “Content” field is filled in. There should be no need to change it, unless you don’t use djangocms-text-ckeditor in your project and your custom plugin defined in CMS_PAGE_WIZARD_CONTENT_PLUGIN have a body field different than body.

CMS_UNESCAPED_RENDER_MODEL_TAGS¶

New in version 3.2.4.

default: True

To immediately improve the security of your project and to prepare for future releases of django CMS and related addons, the project administrator should carefully review each use of the render_model template tags provided by django CMS. He or she is encouraged to ensure that all content which is rendered to a page using this template tag is cleansed of any potentially harmful HTML markup, CSS styles or JavaScript. Once the administrator or developer is satisfied that the content is clean, he or she can add the “safe” filter parameter to the render_model template tag if the content should be rendered without escaping. If there is no need to render the content unescaped, no further action is required.

Once all template tags have been reviewed and adjusted where necessary, the administrator should set CMS_UNESCAPED_RENDER_MODEL_TAGS = False in the project settings. At that point, the project is more secure and will be ready for any future upgrades.

Constants¶

cms.constants.TEMPLATE_INHERITANCE_MAGIC¶: The token used to identify when a user selects “inherit” as template for a page.

cms.constants.LEFT¶: Used as a position indicator in the toolbar.

cms.constants.RIGHT¶: Used as a position indicator in the toolbar.

cms.constants.REFRESH¶: Constant used by the toolbar.

cms.constants.EXPIRE_NOW¶: Constant of 0 (zero) used for cache control headers

cms.constants.MAX_EXPIRATION_TTL¶: Constant of 31536000 or 365 days in seconds used for cache control headers

cms.constants.VISIBILITY_ALL¶: Used for the limit_menu_visibility keyword argument to create_page(). Does not limit menu visibility.

cms.constants.VISIBILITY_USERS¶: Used for the limit_menu_visibility keyword argument to create_page(). Limits menu visibility to authenticated users.

cms.constants.VISIBILITY_ANONYMOUS¶: Used for the limit_menu_visibility keyword argument to create_page(). Limits menu visibility to anonymous (not authenticated) users.

Sitemaps¶

class cms.sitemaps.CMSSitemap¶

Template Tags¶

CMS template tags¶

To use any of the following template tags you first need to load them at the top of your template:

{% load cms_tags %}

placeholder¶

Changed in version 2.1: The placeholder name became case sensitive.

The placeholder template tag defines a placeholder on a page. All placeholders in a template will be auto-detected and can be filled with plugins when editing a page that is using said template. When rendering, the content of these plugins will appear where the placeholder tag was.

Example:

{% placeholder "content" %}

If you want additional content to be displayed in case the placeholder is empty, use the or argument and an additional {% endplaceholder %} closing tag. Everything between {% placeholder "..." or %} and {% endplaceholder %} is rendered in the event that the placeholder has no plugins or the plugins do not generate any output.

Example:

{% placeholder "content" or %}There is no content.{% endplaceholder %}

If you want to add extra variables to the context of the placeholder, you should use Django’s with tag. For instance, if you want to re-size images from your templates according to a context variable called width, you can pass it as follows:

{% with 320 as width %}{% placeholder "content" %}{% endwith %}

If you want the placeholder to inherit the content of a placeholder with the same name on parent pages, simply pass the inherit argument:

{% placeholder "content" inherit %}

This will walk up the page tree up until the root page and will show the first placeholder it can find with content.

It’s also possible to combine this with the or argument to show an ultimate fallback if the placeholder and none of the placeholders on parent pages have plugins that generate content:

{% placeholder "content" inherit or %}There is no spoon.{% endplaceholder %}

See also the CMS_PLACEHOLDER_CONF setting where you can also add extra context variables and change some other placeholder behaviour.

static_placeholder¶

New in version 3.0.

The static_placeholder template tag can be used anywhere in any template and is not bound to any page or model. It needs a name and it will create a placeholder that you can fill with plugins afterwards. The static_placeholder tag is normally used to display the same content on multiple locations or inside of apphooks or other third party apps. Static_placeholder need to be published to show up on live pages.

Example:

{% load cms_tags %}

{% static_placeholder "footer" %}

Warning

Static_placeholders are not included in the undo/redo and page history pages

If you want additional content to be displayed in case the static placeholder is empty, use the or argument and an additional {% endstatic_placeholder %} closing tag. Everything between {% static_placeholder "..." or %} and {% endstatic_placeholder %} is rendered in the event that the placeholder has no plugins or the plugins do not generate any output.

Example:

{% static_placeholder "footer" or %}There is no content.{% endstatic_placeholder %}

By default, a static placeholder applies to all sites in a project.

If you want to make your static placeholder site-specific, so that different sites can have their own content in it, you can add the flag site to the template tag to achieve this.

Example:

{% static_placeholder "footer" site or %}There is no content.{% endstatic_placeholder %}

Note that the Django “sites” framework is required and SITE_ID *must* be set in settings.py for this (not to mention other aspects of django CMS) to work correctly.

render_placeholder¶

{% render_placeholder %} is used if you have a PlaceholderField in your own model and want to render it in the template.

The render_placeholder tag takes the following parameters:

PlaceholderField instance
width parameter for context sensitive plugins (optional)
language keyword plus language-code string to render content in the specified language (optional)
as keyword followed by varname (optional): the template tag output can be saved as a context variable for later use.

The following example renders the my_placeholder field from the mymodel_instance and will render only the English (en) plugins:

{% load cms_tags %}

{% render_placeholder mymodel_instance.my_placeholder language 'en' %}

New in version 3.0.2: This template tag supports the as argument. With this you can assign the result of the template tag to a new variable that you can use elsewhere in the template.

Example:

{% render_placeholder mymodel_instance.my_placeholder as placeholder_content %}
<p>{{ placeholder_content }}</p>

When used in this manner, the placeholder will not be displayed for editing when the CMS is in edit mode.

render_uncached_placeholder¶

The same as render_placeholder, but the placeholder contents will not be cached or taken from the cache.

Arguments:

PlaceholderField instance
width parameter for context sensitive plugins (optional)
language keyword plus language-code string to render content in the specified language (optional)
as keyword followed by varname (optional): the template tag output can be saved as a context variable for later use.

Example:

{% render_uncached_placeholder mymodel_instance.my_placeholder language 'en' %}

show_placeholder¶

Displays a specific placeholder from a given page. This is useful if you want to have some more or less static content that is shared among many pages, such as a footer.

Arguments:

placeholder_name
page_lookup (see page_lookup for more information)
language (optional)
site (optional)

Examples:

{% show_placeholder "footer" "footer_container_page" %}
{% show_placeholder "content" request.current_page.parent_id %}
{% show_placeholder "teaser" request.current_page.get_root %}

show_uncached_placeholder¶

The same as show_placeholder, but the placeholder contents will not be cached or taken from the cache.

Arguments:

placeholder_name
page_lookup (see page_lookup for more information)
language (optional)
site (optional)

Example:

{% show_uncached_placeholder "footer" "footer_container_page" %}

page_lookup¶

The page_lookup argument, passed to several template tags to retrieve a page, can be of any of the following types:

str: interpreted as the reverse_id field of the desired page, which can be set in the “Advanced” section when editing a page.
int: interpreted as the primary key (pk field) of the desired page
dict: a dictionary containing keyword arguments to find the desired page (for instance: {'pk': 1})
Page: you can also pass a page object directly, in which case there will be no database lookup.

If you know the exact page you are referring to, it is a good idea to use a reverse_id (a string used to uniquely name a page) rather than a hard-coded numeric ID in your template. For example, you might have a help page that you want to link to or display parts of on all pages. To do this, you would first open the help page in the admin interface and enter an ID (such as help) under the ‘Advanced’ tab of the form. Then you could use that reverse_id with the appropriate template tags:

{% show_placeholder "right-column" "help" %}
<a href="{% page_url "help" %}">Help page</a>

If you are referring to a page relative to the current page, you’ll probably have to use a numeric page ID or a page object. For instance, if you want the content of the parent page to display on the current page, you can use:

{% show_placeholder "content" request.current_page.parent_id %}

Or, suppose you have a placeholder called teaser on a page that, unless a content editor has filled it with content specific to the current page, should inherit the content of its root-level ancestor:

{% placeholder "teaser" or %}
    {% show_placeholder "teaser" request.current_page.get_root %}
{% endplaceholder %}

page_url¶

Displays the URL of a page in the current language.

Arguments:

page_lookup (see page_lookup for more information)
language (optional)
site (optional)
as var_name (version 3.0 or later, optional; page_url can now be used to assign the resulting URL to a context variable var_name)

Example:

<a href="{% page_url "help" %}">Help page</a>
<a href="{% page_url request.current_page.parent %}">Parent page</a>

If a matching page isn’t found and DEBUG is True, an exception will be raised. However, if DEBUG is False, an exception will not be raised.

New in version 3.0: page_url now supports the as argument. When used this way, the tag emits nothing, but sets a variable in the context with the specified name to the resulting value.

When using the as argument PageNotFound exceptions are always suppressed, regardless of the setting of DEBUG and the tag will simply emit an empty string in these cases.

Example:

{# Emit a 'canonical' tag when the page is displayed on an alternate url #}
{% page_url request.current_page as current_url %}{% if current_url and current_url != request.get_full_path %}<link rel="canonical" href="{% page_url request.current_page %}">{% endif %}

page_attribute¶

This template tag is used to display an attribute of the current page in the current language.

Arguments:

attribute_name
page_lookup (optional; see page_lookup for more information)

Possible values for attribute_name are: "title", "menu_title", "page_title", "slug", "meta_description", "changed_date", "changed_by" (note that you can also supply that argument without quotes, but this is deprecated because the argument might also be a template variable).

Example:

{% page_attribute "page_title" %}

If you supply the optional page_lookup argument, you will get the page attribute from the page found by that argument.

Example:

{% page_attribute "page_title" "my_page_reverse_id" %}
{% page_attribute "page_title" request.current_page.parent_id %}
{% page_attribute "slug" request.current_page.get_root %}

New in version 2.3.2: This template tag supports the as argument. With this you can assign the result of the template tag to a new variable that you can use elsewhere in the template.

Example:

{% page_attribute "page_title" as title %}
<title>{{ title }}</title>

It even can be used in combination with the page_lookup argument.

Example:

{% page_attribute "page_title" "my_page_reverse_id" as title %}
<a href="/mypage/">{{ title }}</a>

New in version 2.4.

render_plugin¶

This template tag is used to render child plugins of the current plugin and should be used inside plugin templates.

Arguments:

plugin

Plugin needs to be an instance of a plugin model.

Example:

{% load cms_tags %}
<div class="multicolumn">
{% for plugin in instance.child_plugin_instances %}
    <div style="width: {{ plugin.width }}00px;">
        {% render_plugin plugin %}
    </div>
{% endfor %}
</div>

Normally the children of plugins can be accessed via the child_plugins attribute of plugins. Plugins need the allow_children attribute to set to True for this to be enabled.

New in version 3.0.

render_plugin_block¶

This template tag acts like the template tag render_model_block but with a plugin instead of a model as its target. This is used to link from a block of markup to a plugin’s change form in edit/preview mode.

This is useful for user interfaces that have some plugins hidden from display in edit/preview mode, but the CMS author needs to expose a way to edit them. It is also useful for just making duplicate or alternate means of triggering the change form for a plugin.

This would typically be used inside a parent-plugin’s render template. In this example code below, there is a parent container plugin which renders a list of child plugins inside a navigation block, then the actual plugin contents inside a DIV.contentgroup-items block. In this example, the navigation block is always shown, but the items are only shown once the corresponding navigation element is clicked. Adding this render_plugin_block makes it significantly more intuitive to edit a child plugin’s content, by double-clicking its navigation item in edit mode.

Arguments:

plugin

Example:

{% load cms_tags l10n %}

{% block section_content %}
<div class="contentgroup-container">
  <nav class="contentgroup">
    <div class="inner">
      <ul class="contentgroup-items">{% for child in children %}
      {% if child.enabled %}
        <li class="item{{ forloop.counter0|unlocalize }}">
          {% render_plugin_block child %}
          <a href="#item{{ child.id|unlocalize }}">{{ child.title|safe }}</a>
          {% endrender_plugin_block %}
        </li>{% endif %}
      {% endfor %}
      </ul>
    </div>
  </nav>

  <div class="contentgroup-items">{% for child in children %}
    <div class="contentgroup-item item{{ child.id|unlocalize }}{% if not forloop.counter0 %} active{% endif %}">
      {% render_plugin child  %}
    </div>{% endfor %}
  </div>
</div>
{% endblock %}

New in version 3.0.

render_model¶

Warning

render_model marks as safe the content of the rendered model attribute. This may be a security risk if used on fields which may contains non-trusted content. Be aware, and use the template tag accordingly.

render_model is the way to add frontend editing to any Django model. It both renders the content of the given attribute of the model instance and makes it clickable to edit the related model.

If the toolbar is not enabled, the value of the attribute is rendered in the template without further action.

If the toolbar is enabled, click to call frontend editing code is added.

By using this template tag you can show and edit page titles as well as fields in standard django models, see Frontend editing for Page and Django models for examples and further documentation.

Example:

<h1>{% render_model my_model "title" "title,abstract" %}</h1>

This will render to:

<!-- The content of the H1 is the active area that triggers the frontend editor -->
<h1><div class="cms-plugin cms-plugin-myapp-mymodel-title-1">{{ my_model.title }}</div></h1>

Arguments:

instance: instance of your model in the template
attribute: the name of the attribute you want to show in the template; it can be a context variable name; it’s possible to target field, property or callable for the specified model; when used on a page object this argument accepts the special titles value which will show the page title field, while allowing editing title, menu title and page title fields in the same form;
edit_fields (optional): a comma separated list of fields editable in the popup editor; when template tag is used on a page object this argument accepts the special changelist value which allows editing the pages changelist (items list);
language (optional): the admin language tab to be linked. Useful only for django-hvad enabled models.
filters (optional): a string containing chained filters to apply to the output content; works the same way as filter template tag;
view_url (optional): the name of a URL that will be reversed using the instance pk and the language as arguments;
view_method (optional): a method name that will return a URL to a view; the method must accept request as first parameter.
varname (optional): the template tag output can be saved as a context variable for later use.

Warning

In this version of django CMS, the setting CMS_UNESCAPED_RENDER_MODEL_TAGS has a default value of True to provide behavior consistent with previous releases. However, all developers are encouraged to set this value to False to help prevent a range of security vulnerabilities stemming from HTML, Javascript, and CSS Code Injection.

Warning

render_model is only partially compatible with django-hvad: using it with hvad-translated fields (say {% render_model object ‘translated_field’ %} return error if the hvad-enabled object does not exists in the current language. As a workaround render_model_icon can be used instead.

New in version 3.0.

render_model_block¶

render_model_block is the block-level equivalent of render_model:

{% render_model_block my_model %}
    <h1>{{ instance.title }}</h1>
    <div class="body">
        {{ instance.date|date:"d F Y" }}
        {{ instance.text }}
    </div>
{% endrender_model_block %}

This will render to:

<!-- This whole block is the active area that triggers the frontend editor -->
<div class="cms-plugin cms-plugin-myapp-mymodel-1">
    <h1>{{ my_model.title }}</h1>
    <div class="body">
        {{ my_model.date|date:"d F Y" }}
        {{ my_model.text }}
    </div>
</div>

In the block the my_model is aliased as instance and every attribute and method is available; also template tags and filters are available in the block.

Warning

If the {% render_model_block %} contains template tags or template code that rely on or manipulate context data that the {% render_model_block %} also makes use of, you may experience some unexpected effects. Unless you are sure that such conflicts will not occur it is advised to keep the code within a {% render_model_block %} as simple and short as possible.

Arguments:

instance: instance of your model in the template
edit_fields (optional): a comma separated list of fields editable in the popup editor; when template tag is used on a page object this argument accepts the special changelist value which allows editing the pages changelist (items list);
language (optional): the admin language tab to be linked. Useful only for django-hvad enabled models.
view_url (optional): the name of a URL that will be reversed using the instance pk and the language as arguments;
view_method (optional): a method name that will return a URL to a view; the method must accept request as first parameter.
varname (optional): the template tag output can be saved as a context variable for later use.

Warning

In this version of django CMS, the setting CMS_UNESCAPED_RENDER_MODEL_TAGS has a default value of True to provide behavior consistent with previous releases. However, all developers are encouraged to set this value to False to help prevent a range of security vulnerabilities stemming from HTML, Javascript, and CSS Code Injection.

New in version 3.0.

render_model_icon¶

render_model_icon is intended for use where the relevant object attribute is not available for user interaction (for example, already has a link on it, think of a title in a list of items and the titles are linked to the object detail view); when in edit mode, it renders an edit icon, which will trigger the editing change form for the provided fields.

<h3><a href="{{ my_model.get_absolute_url }}">{{ my_model.title }}</a> {% render_model_icon my_model %}</h3>

It will render to something like:

<h3>
    <a href="{{ my_model.get_absolute_url }}">{{ my_model.title }}</a>
    <div class="cms-plugin cms-plugin-myapp-mymodel-1 cms-render-model-icon">
        <!-- The image below is the active area that triggers the frontend editor -->
        <img src="/static/cms/img/toolbar/render_model_placeholder.png">
    </div>
</h3>

Note

Icon and position can be customised via CSS by setting a background to the .cms-render-model-icon img selector.

Arguments:

instance: instance of your model in the template
edit_fields (optional): a comma separated list of fields editable in the popup editor; when template tag is used on a page object this argument accepts the special changelist value which allows editing the pages changelist (items list);
language (optional): the admin language tab to be linked. Useful only for django-hvad enabled models.
view_url (optional): the name of a URL that will be reversed using the instance pk and the language as arguments;
view_method (optional): a method name that will return a URL to a view; the method must accept request as first parameter.
varname (optional): the template tag output can be saved as a context variable for later use.

Warning

In this version of django CMS, the setting CMS_UNESCAPED_RENDER_MODEL_TAGS has a default value of True to provide behavior consistent with previous releases. However, all developers are encouraged to set this value to False to help prevent a range of security vulnerabilities stemming from HTML, Javascript, and CSS Code Injection.

New in version 3.0.

render_model_add¶

render_model_add is similar to render_model_icon but it will enable to create instances of the given instance class; when in edit mode, it renders an add icon, which will trigger the editing add form for the provided model.

<h3><a href="{{ my_model.get_absolute_url }}">{{ my_model.title }}</a> {% render_model_add my_model %}</h3>

It will render to something like:

<h3>
    <a href="{{ my_model.get_absolute_url }}">{{ my_model.title }}</a>
    <div class="cms-plugin cms-plugin-myapp-mymodel-1 cms-render-model-add">
        <!-- The image below is the active area that triggers the frontend editor -->
        <img src="/static/cms/img/toolbar/render_model_placeholder.png">
    </div>
</h3>

Note

Icon and position can be customised via CSS by setting a background to the .cms-render-model-add img selector.

Arguments:

instance: instance of your model, or model class to be added
edit_fields (optional): a comma separated list of fields editable in the popup editor;
language (optional): the admin language tab to be linked. Useful only for django-hvad enabled models.
view_url (optional): the name of a url that will be reversed using the instance pk and the language as arguments;
view_method (optional): a method name that will return a URL to a view; the method must accept request as first parameter.
varname (optional): the template tag output can be saved as a context variable for later use.

Warning

In this version of django CMS, the setting CMS_UNESCAPED_RENDER_MODEL_TAGS has a default value of True to provide behavior consistent with previous releases. However, all developers are encouraged to set this value to False to help prevent a range of security vulnerabilities stemming from HTML, Javascript, and CSS Code Injection.

Warning

If passing a class, instead of an instance, and using view_method, please bear in mind that the method will be called over an empty instance of the class, so attributes are all empty, and the instance does not exists on the database.

New in version 3.1.

render_model_add_block¶

render_model_add_block is similar to render_model_add but instead of emitting an icon that is linked to the add model form in a modal dialog, it wraps arbitrary markup with the same “link”. This allows the developer to create front-end editing experiences better suited to the project.

All arguments are identical to render_model_add, but the template tag is used in two parts to wrap the markup that should be wrapped.

{% render_model_add_block my_model_instance %}<div>New Object</div>{% endrender_model_add_block %}

It will render to something like:

<div class="cms-plugin cms-plugin-myapp-mymodel-1 cms-render-model-add">
  <div>New Object</div>
</div>

Warning

You must pass an instance of your model as instance parameter. The instance passed could be an existing models instance, or one newly created in your view/plugin. It does not even have to be saved, it is introspected by the template tag to determine the desired model class.

Arguments:

instance: instance of your model in the template
edit_fields (optional): a comma separated list of fields editable in the popup editor;
language (optional): the admin language tab to be linked. Useful only for django-hvad enabled models.
view_url (optional): the name of a URL that will be reversed using the instance pk and the language as arguments;
view_method (optional): a method name that will return a URL to a view; the method must accept request as first parameter.
varname (optional): the template tag output can be saved as a context variable for later use.

page_language_url¶

Returns the URL of the current page in an other language:

{% page_language_url de %}
{% page_language_url fr %}
{% page_language_url en %}

If the current URL has no CMS Page and is handled by a navigation extender and the URL changes based on the language, you will need to set a language_changer function with the set_language_changer function in menus.utils.

For more information, see Internationalisation.

language_chooser¶

The language_chooser template tag will display a language chooser for the current page. You can modify the template in menu/language_chooser.html or provide your own template if necessary.

Example:

{% language_chooser %}

or with custom template:

{% language_chooser "myapp/language_chooser.html" %}

The language_chooser has three different modes in which it will display the languages you can choose from: “raw” (default), “native”, “current” and “short”. It can be passed as the last argument to the language_chooser tag as a string. In “raw” mode, the language will be displayed like its verbose name in the settings. In “native” mode the languages are displayed in their actual language (eg. German will be displayed “Deutsch”, Japanese as “日本語” etc). In “current” mode the languages are translated into the current language the user is seeing the site in (eg. if the site is displayed in German, Japanese will be displayed as “Japanisch”). “Short” mode takes the language code (eg. “en”) to display.

If the current URL has no CMS Page and is handled by a navigation extender and the URL changes based on the language, you will need to set a language_changer function with the set_language_changer function in menus.utils.

For more information, see Internationalisation.

The Toolbar¶

All methods taking a side argument expect either cms.constants.LEFT or cms.constants.RIGHT for that argument.

Methods accepting the position argument can insert items at a specific position. This can be either None to insert at the end, an integer index at which to insert the item, a cms.toolbar.items.ItemSearchResult to insert it before that search result or a cms.toolbar.items.BaseItem instance to insert it before that item.

cms.toolbar.items¶

Important

Overlay and sideframe

Then django CMS sideframe has been replaced with an overlay mechanism. The API still refers to the sideframe, because it is invoked in the same way, and what has changed is merely the behaviour in the user’s browser.

In other words, sideframe and the overlay refer to different versions of the same thing.

class cms.toolbar.items.ItemSearchResult¶

Used for the find APIs in ToolbarMixin. Supports addition and subtraction of numbers. Can be cast to an integer.

item¶: The item found.

index¶: The index of the item.

class cms.toolbar.items.ToolbarMixin¶

Provides APIs shared between cms.toolbar.toolbar.CMSToolbar and Menu.

The active and disabled flags taken by all methods of this class specify the state of the item added.

extra_classes should be either None or a list of class names as strings.

REFRESH_PAGE¶: Constant to be used with on_close to refresh the current page when the frame is closed.

LEFT¶: Constant to be used with side.

RIGHT¶: Constant to be used with side.

get_item_count()¶: Returns the number of items in the toolbar or menu.

get_alphabetical_insert_position(self, new_menu_name, item_type, default=0)¶

add_item(item, position=None)¶: Low level API to add items, adds the item to the toolbar or menu and makes it searchable. item must be an instance of BaseItem. Read above for information about the position argument.

remove_item(item)¶: Removes item from the toolbar or menu. If the item can’t be found, a KeyError is raised.

find_items(item_type, **attributes)¶: Returns a list of ItemSearchResult objects matching all items of item_type, which must be a sub-class of BaseItem, where all attributes in attributes match.

find_first(item_type, **attributes)¶: Returns the first ItemSearchResult that matches the search or None. The search strategy is the same as in find_items(). Since positional insertion allows None, it’s safe to use the return value of this method as the position argument to insertion APIs.

add_sideframe_item(name, url, active=False, disabled=False, extra_classes=None, on_close=None, side=LEFT, position=None)¶

Adds an item which opens url in the sideframe and returns it.

on_close can be set to None to do nothing when the sideframe closes, REFRESH_PAGE to refresh the page when it closes or a URL to open once it closes.

add_modal_item(name, url, active=False, disabled=False, extra_classes=None, on_close=REFRESH_PAGE, side=LEFT, position=None)¶

The same as add_sideframe_item(), but opens the url in a modal dialog instead of the sideframe.

on_close can be set to None to do nothing when the side modal closes, REFRESH_PAGE to refresh the page when it closes or a URL to open once it closes.

Note: The default value for on_close is different in add_sideframe_item() then in add_modal_item()

add_link_item(name, url, active=False, disabled=False, extra_classes=None, side=LEFT, position=None)¶: Adds an item that simply opens url and returns it.

add_ajax_item(name, action, active=False, disabled=False, extra_classes=None, data=None, question=None, side=LEFT, position=None)¶

Adds an item which sends a POST request to action with data. data should be None or a dictionary, the CSRF token will automatically be added to it.

If question is set to a string, it will be asked before the request is sent to confirm the user wants to complete this action.

class cms.toolbar.items.BaseItem(position)¶

Base item class.

template¶: Must be set by sub-classes and point to a Django template

side¶: Must be either cms.constants.LEFT or cms.constants.RIGHT.

render()¶: Renders the item and returns it as a string. By default calls get_context() and renders template with the context returned.

get_context()¶: Returns the context (as dictionary) for this item.

class cms.toolbar.items.Menu(name, csrf_token, side=LEFT, position=None)¶

The menu item class. Inherits ToolbarMixin and provides the APIs documented on it.

The csrf_token must be set as this class provides high level APIs to add items to it.

get_or_create_menu(key, verbose_name, side=LEFT, position=None)¶: The same as cms.toolbar.toolbar.CMSToolbar.get_or_create_menu() but adds the menu as a sub menu and returns a SubMenu.

add_break(identifier=None, position=None)¶: Adds a visual break in the menu, useful for grouping items, and returns it. identifier may be used to make this item searchable.

class cms.toolbar.items.SubMenu(name, csrf_token, side=LEFT, position=None)¶: Same as Menu but without the Menu.get_or_create_menu() method.

class cms.toolbar.items.LinkItem(name, url, active=False, disabled=False, extra_classes=None, side=LEFT)¶: Simple link item.

class cms.toolbar.items.SideframeItem(name, url, active=False, disabled=False, extra_classes=None, on_close=None, side=LEFT)¶: Item that opens url in sideframe.

class cms.toolbar.items.AjaxItem(name, action, csrf_token, data=None, active=False, disabled=False, extra_classes=None, question=None, side=LEFT)¶: An item which posts data to action.

class cms.toolbar.items.ModalItem(name, url, active=False, disabled=False, extra_classes=None, on_close=None, side=LEFT)¶: Item that opens url in the modal.

class cms.toolbar.items.Break(identifier=None)¶: A visual break for menus. identifier may be provided to make this item searchable. Since breaks can only be within menus, they have no side attribute.

class cms.toolbar.items.ButtonList(identifier=None, extra_classes=None, side=LEFT)¶

A list of one or more buttons.

The identifier may be provided to make this item searchable.

add_item(item)¶: Adds item to the list of buttons. item must be an instance of Button.

add_button(name, url, active=False, disabled=False, extra_classes=None)¶: Adds a Button to the list of buttons and returns it.

class cms.toolbar.items.Button(name, url, active=False, disabled=False, extra_classes=None)¶: A button to be used with ButtonList. Opens url when selected.

class cms.toolbar_pool.ToolbarPool¶

register(self, toolbar)¶: Register this toolbar.

class cms.extensions.toolbar.ExtensionToolbar¶

get_page_extension_admin()¶

_setup_extension_toolbar()¶

get_title_extension_admin()¶

New in version 3.2.

Content creation wizards¶

See the How-to section on wizards for an introduction to creating wizards.

Wizard classes are sub-classes of cms.wizards.wizard_base.Wizard.

They need to be registered with the cms.wizards.wizard_pool.wizard_pool:

wizard_pool.register(my_app_wizard)

Finally, a wizard needs to be instantiated, for example:

my_app_wizard = MyAppWizard(
    title="New MyApp",
    weight=200,
    form=MyAppWizardForm,
    description="Create a new MyApp instance",
)

When instantiating a Wizard object, use the keywords:

title: The title of the wizard. This will appear in a large font size on the wizard “menu”

weight: The “weight” of the wizard when determining the sort-order.

form: The form to use for this wizard. This is mandatory, but can be sub-classed from django.forms.form or django.forms.ModelForm.

model: If a Form is used above, this keyword argument must be supplied and should contain the model class. This is used to determine the unique wizard “signature” amongst other things.

template_name: An optional template can be supplied.

description: The description is optional, but if it is not supplied, the CMS will create one from the pattern: “Create a new «model.verbose_name» instance.”

edit_mode_on_success:

If set, the CMS will switch the user to edit-mode by adding an edit param to the query-string of the URL returned by get_success_url. This is True by default.

Base Wizard¶

All wizard classes should inherit from cms.wizards.wizard_base.Wizard. This class implements a number of methods that may be overridden as required.

Base Wizard methods¶

get_description¶

Simply returns the description property assigned during instantiation or one derived from the model if description is not provided during instantiation. Override this method if this needs to be determined programmatically.

get_title¶

Simply returns the title property assigned during instantiation. Override this method if this needs to be determined programmatically.

get_success_url¶

Once the wizard has completed, the user will be redirected to the URL of the new object that was created. By default, this is done by return the result of calling the get_absolute_url method on the object. This may then be modified to force the user into edit mode if the wizard property edit_mode_on_success is True.

In some cases, the created content will not implement get_absolute_url or that redirecting the user is undesirable. In these cases, simply override this method. If get_success_url returns None, the CMS will just redirect to the current page after the object is created.

This method is called by the CMS with the parameter:

obj: The created object

get_weight¶

Simply returns the weight property assigned during instantiation. Override this method if this needs to be determined programmatically.

user_has_add_permission¶

This should return a boolean reflecting whether the user has permission to create the underlying content for the wizard.

This method is called by the CMS with these parameters:

user: The current user

page: The current CMS page the user is viewing when invoking the wizard

`wizard_pool`¶

wizard_pool includes a read-only property discovered which returns the Boolean True if wizard-discovery has already occurred and False otherwise.

Wizard pool methods¶

is_registered¶

Sometimes, it may be necessary to check to see if a specific wizard has been registered. To do this, simply call:

value = wizard_pool.is_registered(«wizard»)

register¶

You may notice from the example above that the last line in the sample code is:

wizard_pool.register(my_app_wizard)

This sort of thing should look very familiar, as a similar approach is used for cms_apps, template tags and even Django’s admin.

Calling the wizard pool’s register method will register the provided wizard into the pool, unless there is already a wizard of the same module and class name. In this case, the register method will raise a cms.wizards.wizard_pool.AlreadyRegisteredException.

unregister¶

It may be useful to unregister wizards that have already been registered with the pool. To do this, simply call:

value = wizard_pool.unregister(«wizard»)

The value returned will be a Boolean: True if a wizard was successfully unregistered or False otherwise.

get_entry¶

If you would like to get a reference to a specific wizard in the pool, just call get_entry() as follows:

wizard = wizard_pool.get_entry(my_app_wizard)

get_entries¶

get_entries() is useful if it is required to have a list of all registered wizards. Typically, this is used to iterate over them all. Note that they will be returned in the order of their weight: smallest numbers for weight are returned first.:

for wizard in wizard_pool.get_entries():
    # do something with a wizard...

Development & community¶

django CMS is an open-source project, and relies on its community of users to keep getting better.

The contributors to django CMS come from across the world, and have a wide range and levels of skills and expertise. Every contribution, however small, is valued.

As an open source project, anyone is welcome to contribute in whatever form they are able, which can include taking part in discussions, filing bug reports, proposing improvements, contributing code or documentation, and testing the system simply by using it.

django CMS’s development community¶

You can join us online:

in our IRC channel, #django-cms, on irc.freenode.net. If you don’t have an IRC client, you can join our IRC channel using the KiwiIRC web client, which works pretty well.
on our django CMS users email list for general django CMS questions and discussion
on our django CMS developers email list for discussions about the development of django CMS

You can also follow:

the Travis Continuous Integration build reports
the @djangocms Twitter account for general announcements

You don’t need to be an expert developer to make a valuable contribution - all you need is a little knowledge of the system, and a willingness to follow the contribution guidelines.

Remember that contributions to the documentation are highly prized, and key to the success of the django CMS project.

Development is led by a team of core developers, and under the overall guidance of a technical board.

All activity in the community is governed by our Code of Conduct.

Divio AG¶

django CMS was released under a BSD licence in 2009. It was created at Divio AG of Zürich, Switzerland, by Patrick Lauber, who led its development for several years.

django CMS represents Divio’s vision for a general-purpose CMS platform able to meet its needs as a web agency with a large portfolio of different clients. This vision continues to guide the development of django CMS.

Divio’s role in steering the project’s development is formalised in the django CMS technical board, whose members are drawn both from key staff at Divio and other members of the django CMS community.

Divio hosts the django CMS project website and maintains overall control of the django CMS repository. As the chief backer of django CMS, and in order to ensure a consistent and long-term approach to the project, Divio reserves the right of final say in any decisions concerning its development.

Divio remains thoroughly committed to django CMS both as a high-quality technical product and as a healthy open source project.

Core developers¶

Leading this process is a small team of core developers - people who have made and continue to make a significant contribution to the project, and have a good understanding not only of the code powering django CMS, but also the longer-term aims and directions of the project.

All core developers are volunteers.

Core developers have commit authority to django CMS’s repository on GitHub. It’s up to a core developer to say when a particular pull request should be committed to the repository.

Core developers also keep an eye on the #django-cms IRC channel on the Freenode network, and the django CMS users and django CMS developers email lists.

In addition to leading the development of the project, the core developers have an important role in fostering the community of developers who work with django CMS, and who create the numerous applications, plugins and other software that integrates with it.

Finally, the core developers are responsible for setting the tone of the community and helping ensure that it continues to be friendly and welcoming to all who wish to participate. The values and standards of the community are set out in its Code of Conduct.

Current core developers¶

Angelo Dini http://github.com/finalangel
Daniele Procida http://github.com/evildmp
Iacopo Spalletti http://github.com/yakky
Jonas Obrist http://github.com/ojii
Martin Koistinen http://github.com/mkoistinen
Patrick Lauber http://github.com/digi604
Paulo Alvarado http://github.com/czpython
Stefan Foulis http://github.com/stefanfoulis
Vadim Sikora https://github.com/vxsx

Core designers¶

django CMS also receives important contributions from core designers, responsible for key aspects of its visual design:

Christian Bertschy
Matthias Nüesch

Retired core developers¶

Chris Glass http://github.com/chrisglass
Øyvind Saltvik http://github.com/fivethreeo
Benjamin Wohlwend http://github.com/piquadrat

Following a year or so of inactivity, a core developer will be moved to the “Retired” list, with the understanding that they can rejoin the project in the future whenever they choose.

Becoming a core developer¶

Anyone can become a core developer. You don’t need to be an expert developer, or know more than anyone else about the internals of the CMS. You just have to be a regular contributor, who makes a sustained and valuable contribution to the project.

This contribution can take many forms - not just commits to our codebase. For example, documentation is a valuable contribution, and so is simply being a member of the community who spends time assisting others.

Any member of the core team can nominate a new person for membership. The nomination will be discussed by the technical board, and assuming there are no objections raised, approved.

Technical board¶

Historically, django CMS’s development has been led by members of staff from Divio. It has been (and will continue to be) a requirement of the CMS that it meet Divio’s needs.

However, as the software has matured and its user-base has dramatically expanded, it has become increasingly important also to reflect a wider range of perspectives in the development process. The technical board exists to help guarantee this.

Role¶

The role of the board is to maintain oversight of the work of the core team, to set key goals for the project and to make important decisions about the development of the software.

In the vast majority of cases, the team of core developers will be able to resolve questions and make decisions without the formal input of the technical board; where a disagreement with no clear consensus exists however, the board will make the necessary definitive decision.

The board is also responsible for making final decisions on the election of new core developers to the team, and - should it be necessary - the removal of developers who have retired, or for other reasons.

Composition of the board¶

The the technical board will include key developers from Divio and others in the django CMS development community - developers who work with django CMS, as well as developers of django CMS - in order to help ensure that all perspectives are represented in important decisions about the software and the project.

The board may also include representatives of the django CMS community who are not developers but who have a valuable expertise in key fields (user experience, design, content management, etc).

The current members of the technical board are:

Angelo Dini
Christian Bertschy
Daniele Procida (Chair)
Iacopo Spalletti
Jonas Obrist
Martin Koistinen
Matteo Larghi

The board will co-opt new members as appropriate.

Development policies¶

Reporting security issues¶

Attention

If you think you have discovered a security issue in our code, please report it privately, by emailing us at security@django-cms.org.

Please do not raise it on:

IRC

GitHub

either of our email lists

or in any other public forum until we have had a chance to deal with it.

Review¶

Patches should never be pushed directly to the GitHub repository - they should arrive in the form of pull requests so that they can be reviewed publicly.

Nothing may enter the code-base, including the documentation, without proper review and formal approval from the core team.

Reviews are welcomed by all members of the community. You don’t need to be a core developer, or even an experienced programmer, to make a useful contribution to code review. Even noting that you don’t understand something in a pull request is valuable feedback and will be taken seriously.

Formal approval¶

Formal approval means “OK to merge” comments (a “+1”, a “Looks good to me”, etc), following review, from at least two different members of the core team who have expertise in the relevant areas, and excluding the author of the pull request.

The exceptions to this are frontend code and documentation, where a single “OK to merge” comment will suffice, at least until the team has more expert developers in those areas.

Proposal and discussion of significant changes¶

New features and backward-incompatible changes should be proposed using the django CMS developers email list. Discussion should take place there before any pull requests are made. Note that the core developers will simply close any discussions of this kind on GitHub, and redirect them to the email list.

This is in the interests of openness and transparency, and to give the community a chance to participate in and understand the decisions taken by the project.

Release schedule¶

The roadmap can be found on our website.

We are planning releases according to key principles and aims. Issues within milestones are therefore subject to change.

The django CMS developers email list serves as gathering point for developers. Ideas and proposals prior are discussed here, and added to the roadmap following discussion by the Technical board.

django CMS 3.4 will be the first “LTS” (“Long-Term Support”) release of the application. Long-term support means that this version will continue to receive security and other critical updates for 24 months after its first release.

Any updates it does receive will be backward-compatible and will not alter functional behaviour. This means that users can deploy this version confident that keeping it up-to-date requires only easily-applied security and other critical updates, until the next LTS release.

Branches¶

Changed in version 3.3: Previously, we maintained a master branch (now deleted), and a set of support branches (now pruned, and renamed release).

We maintain a number of branches on our GitHub repository.

the latest (highest-numbered) release/x.y.z

This is the branch that will become the next minor release on PyPI.

Fixes and backwards-compatible improvements (i.e. most pull requests) will be made against this branch.

develop

This is the branch that will become the next major release (one that increments the x or y of the latest release/x.y.z).

This branch is for new features and backwards-incompatible changes. By their nature, these will require more substantial team co-ordination.

Older release/x.y.z branches

These represent the final point of development (the highest y of older versions). Releases in the full set of older versions have been tagged (use Git Tags to retrieve them).

These branches will only rarely be patched, with security fixes representing the main reason for a patch.

Commits in release/x.y.z will be ported forward into develop (if appropriate) by the core developers. It is the responsibility of the core team member who merges a patch to port it forward.

If in doubt about which branch to work from, ask on the #django-cms IRC channel on freenode or the django-cms-developers email list!

Commits¶

New in version 3.3.

Commit messages¶

Commit messages and their subject lines should be written in the past tense, not present tense, for example:

Updated contribution policies.

Updated branch policy to clarify purpose of develop/release branches

Added commit policy.

Added changelog policy.

Keep lines short, and within 72 characters as far as possible.

Squashing commits¶

In order to make our Git history more useful, and to make life easier for the core developers, please rebase and squash your commit history into a single commit representing a single coherent piece of work.

For example, we don’t really need or want a commit history, for what ought to be a single commit, that looks like (newest last):

2dceb83 Updated contribution policies.
ffe5f2c Fixed spelling mistake in contribution policies.
29168da Fixed typo.
85d925c Updated commit policy based on feedback.

The bottom three commits are just noise. They don’t represent development of the code base. The four commits should be squashed into a single, meaningful, commit:

85d925c Updated contribution policies.

How to squash commits¶

In this example above, you’d use git rebase -i HEAD~4 (the 4 refers to the number of commits being squashed - adjust it as required).

This will open a git-rebase-todo file (showing commits with the newest last):

pick 2dceb83 Updated contribution policies.
pick ffe5f2c Fixed spelling mistake in contribution policies.
pick 29168da Fixed typo.
pick 85d925c Updated commit policy based on feedback.

“Fixup” the last three commits, using f so that they are squashed into the first, and their commit messages discarded:

pick 2dceb83 Updated contribution policies.
f ffe5f2c Fixed spelling mistake in contribution policies.
f 29168da Fixed typo.
f 85d925c Updated commit policy based on feedback.

Save - and this will leave you with a single commit containing all of the changes:

85d925c Updated contribution policies.

Ask for help if you run into trouble!

Changelog¶

New in version 3.3.

Every new feature, bugfix or other change of substance must be represented in the CHANGELOG. This includes documentation, but doesn’t extend to things like reformatting code, tidying-up, correcting typos and so on.

Each line in the changelog should begin with a verb in the past tense, for example:

* Added CMS_WIZARD_CONTENT_PLACEHOLDER setting
* Renamed the CMS_WIZARD_* settings to CMS_PAGE_WIZARD_*
* Deprecated the old-style wizard-related settings
* Improved handling of uninstalled apphooks
* Fixed an issue which could lead to an apphook without a slug
* Updated contribution policies documentation

New lines should be added to the top of the list.

Contributing code¶

Like every open-source project, django CMS is always looking for motivated individuals to contribute to its source code.

In a nutshell¶

Here’s what the contribution process looks like in brief:

django CMS is hosted on GitHub, at https://github.com/divio/django-cms
The best method to contribute back is to create an account there, then fork the project. You can use this fork as if it was your own project, and should push your changes to it.
When you feel your code is good enough for inclusion, “send us a pull request”, by using the nice GitHub web interface.

See the Contributing a patch how-to document for a walk-through of this process.

Basic requirements and standards¶

If you’re interested in developing a new feature for the CMS, it is recommended that you first discuss it on the django-cms-developers mailing list so as not to do any work that will not get merged in anyway.

Code will be reviewed and tested by at least one core developer, preferably by several. Other community members are welcome to give feedback.
Code must be tested. Your pull request should include unit-tests (that cover the piece of code you’re submitting, obviously)
Documentation should reflect your changes if relevant. There is nothing worse than invalid documentation.
Usually, if unit tests are written, pass, and your change is relevant, then it’ll be merged.

Since we’re hosted on GitHub, django CMS uses git as a version control system.

The GitHub help is very well written and will get you started on using git and GitHub in a jiffy. It is an invaluable resource for newbies and old timers alike.

Syntax and conventions¶

Python¶

We try to conform to PEP8 as much as possible. A few highlights:

Indentation should be exactly 4 spaces. Not 2, not 6, not 8. 4. Also, tabs are evil.
We try (loosely) to keep the line length at 79 characters. Generally the rule is “it should look good in a terminal-base editor” (eg vim), but we try not be too inflexible about it.

HTML, CSS and JavaScript¶

As of django CMS 3.2, we are using the same guidelines as described in Aldryn Boilerplate

Frontend code should be formatted for readability. If in doubt, follow existing examples, or ask.

JS Linting¶

JavaScript is linted using ESLint. In order to run the linter you need to do this:

gulp lint

Or you can also run the watcher by just running gulp.

Process¶

This is how you fix a bug or add a feature:

fork us on GitHub.
Checkout your fork.
Hack hack hack, test test test, commit commit commit, test again.
Push to your fork.
Open a pull request.

And at any point in that process, you can add: discuss discuss discuss, because it’s always useful for everyone to pass ideas around and look at things together.

Running and writing tests is really important: a pull request that lowers our testing coverage will only be accepted with a very good reason; bug-fixing patches must demonstrate the bug with a test to avoid regressions and to check that the fix works.

We have an IRC channel, our django-cms-developers email list, and of course the code reviews mechanism on GitHub - do use them.

If you don’t have an IRC client, you can join our IRC channel using the KiwiIRC web client, which works pretty well.

Frontend¶

Important

When we refer to the frontend here, we only mean the frontend of django CMS’s admin/editor interface.

The frontend of a django CMS website, as seen by its visitors (i.e. the published site), is wholly independent of this. django CMS places almost no restrictions at all on the frontend - if a site can be described in HTML/CSS/JavaScript, it can be developed in django CMS.

In order to be able to work with the frontend tooling contributing to the django CMS you need to have the following dependencies installed:

Node version 0.12.7 (will install npm as well). We recommend using NVM to get the correct version of Node.

Globally installed gulp

Local dependencies npm install

Styles¶

We use Sass for our styles. The files are located within cms/static/cms/sass and can be compiled using the libsass implementation of Sass compiler through Gulp.

In order to compile the stylesheets you need to run this command from the repo root:

gulp sass

While developing it is also possible to run a watcher that compiles Sass files on change:

gulp

By default, source maps are not included in the compiled files. In order to turn them on while developing just add the --debug option:

gulp --debug

Icons¶

We are using gulp-iconfont to generate icon web fonts into cms/static/cms/fonts/. This also creates _iconography.scss within cms/static/cms/sass/components which adds all the icon classes and ultimately compiles to CSS.

In order to compile the web font you need to run:

gulp icons

This simply takes all SVGs within cms/static/cms/fonts/src and embeds them into the web font. All classes will be automatically added to _iconography.scss as previously mentioned.

Additionally we created an SVG template within cms/static/cms/font/src/_template.svgz that you should use when converting or creating additional icons. It is named svgz so it doesn’t get compiled into the font. When using Adobe Illustrator please mind the following settings.

JS Bundling¶

JavaScript files are split up for easier development, but in the end they are bundled together and minified to decrease amount of requests made and improve performance. In order to do that we use gulp task runner, where bundle command is available. We use Webpack <https://github.com/webpack/webpack>_ for bundling JavaScript files. Configuration for each bundle are stored inside the webpack.config.js and their respective entry points. CMS exposes only one global variable, named CMS. If you want to use JavaScript code provided by CMS in external applications, you can only use bundles distributed by CMS, not the source modules.

Contributing documentation¶

Perhaps considered “boring” by hard-core coders, documentation is sometimes even more important than code! This is what brings fresh blood to a project, and serves as a reference for old timers. On top of this, documentation is the one area where less technical people can help most - you just need to write simple, unfussy English. Elegance of style is a secondary consideration, and your prose can be improved later if necessary.

Contributions to the documentation earn the greatest respect from the core developers and the django CMS community.

Documentation should be:

written using valid Sphinx/restructuredText syntax (see below for specifics); the file extension should be .rst
wrapped at 100 characters per line
written in English, using British English spelling and punctuation
accessible - you should assume the reader to be moderately familiar with Python and Django, but not anything else. Link to documentation of libraries you use, for example, even if they are “obvious” to you

Merging documentation is pretty fast and painless.

Except for the tiniest of change, we recommend that you test them before submitting.

Building the documentation¶

Follow the same steps above to fork and clone the project locally. Next, cd into the django-cms/docs and install the requirements:

make install

Now you can test and run the documentation locally using:

make run

make run runs make html, and serves the built documentation on port 8001 (that is, at http://localhost:8001/.

It then watches the docs directory; when it spots changes, it will automatically rebuild the documentation, and refresh the page in your browser.

This allows you to review your changes in your local browser using http://localhost:8001/.

Note

What this does

make install is roughly the equivalent of:

virtualenv env
source env/bin/activate
cd docs
pip install -r requirements.txt
make html
sphinx-autobuild . build/html 0.0.0.0 --port 8001

Spelling¶

We use sphinxcontrib-spelling, which in turn uses pyenchant and enchant to check the spelling of the documentation.

You need to check your spelling before submitting documentation.

Important

We use British English rather than US English spellings. This means that we use colour rather than color, emphasise rather than emphasize and so on.

Install the spelling software¶

sphinxcontrib-spelling and pyenchant are Python packages that will be installed in the virtualenv docs/env when you run make install (see above).

You will need to have enchant installed too, if it is not already. The easy way to check is to run make spelling from the docs directory. If it runs successfully, you don’t need to do anything, but if not you will have to install enchant for your system. For example, on OS X:

brew install enchant

or Debian Linux:

apt-get install enchant

Check spelling¶

Run:

make spelling

in the docs directory to conduct the checks.

Note

This script expects to find a virtualenv at docs/env, as installed by make install (see above).

If no spelling errors have been detected, make spelling will report:

build succeeded.

Otherwise:

build finished with problems.
make: *** [spelling] Error 1

It will list any errors in your shell. Misspelt words will be also be listed in build/spelling/output.txt

Words that are not in the built-in dictionary can be added to docs/spelling_wordlist. If you are certain that a word is incorrectly flagged as misspelt, add it to the spelling_wordlist document, in alphabetical order. Please do not add new words unless you are sure they should be in there.

If you find technical terms are being flagged, please check that you have capitalised them correctly - javascript and css are incorrect spellings for example. Commands and special names (of classes, modules, etc) in double backticks - `` - will mean that they are not caught by the spelling checker.

Important

You may well find that some words that pass the spelling test on one system but not on another. Dictionaries on different systems contain different words and even behave differently. The important thing is that the spelling tests pass on Travis when you submit a pull request.

Making a pull request¶

Before you commit any changes, you need to check spellings with make spelling and rebuild the docs using make html. If everything looks good, then it’s time to push your changes to GitHub and open a pull request in the usual way.

Documentation structure¶

Our documentation is divided into the following main sections:

Tutorials (introduction): step-by-step, beginning-to-end tutorials to get you up and running
How-to guides (how_to): step-by-step guides covering more advanced development
Key topics (topics): explanations of key parts of the system
Reference (reference): technical reference for APIs, key models and so on
Development & community (contributing)
Release notes & upgrade information (upgrade)
Using django CMS (user): guides for using rather than setting up or developing for the CMS

Documentation markup¶

Sections¶

We mostly follow the Python documentation conventions for section marking:

##########
Page title
##########

*******
heading
*******

sub-heading
===========

sub-sub-heading
---------------

sub-sub-sub-heading
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

sub-sub-sub-sub-heading
"""""""""""""""""""""""

Inline markup¶

use backticks - `` - for:

literals:

The ``cms.models.pagemodel`` contains several important methods.

filenames:

Before you start, edit ``settings.py``.

names of fields and other specific items in the Admin interface:
```
Edit the ``Redirect`` field.
```

use emphasis - *Home* - around:
- the names of available options in or parts of the Admin:
  To hide and show the *Toolbar*, use the...
- the names of important modes or states:
  ... in order to switch to *Edit mode*.
- values in or of fields:
  Enter *Home* in the field.
use strong emphasis - ** - around:
- buttons that perform an action:
  Hit **View published** or **Save as draft**.

Rules for using technical words¶

There should be one consistent way of rendering any technical word, depending on its context. Please follow these rules:

in general use, simply use the word as if it were any ordinary word, with no capitalisation or highlighting: “Your placeholder can now be used.”
at the start of sentences or titles, capitalise in the usual way: “Placeholder management guide”
when introducing the term for the the first time, or for the first time in a document, you may highlight it to draw attention to it: “Placeholders are special model fields”.
when the word refers specifically to an object in the code, highlight it as a literal: “Placeholder methods can be overwritten as required” - when appropriate, link the term to further reference documentation as well as simply highlighting it.

References¶

Create:

.. _testing:

and use:

:ref:`testing`

internal cross-references liberally.

Use absolute links to other documentation pages - :doc:`/how_to/toolbar` - rather than relative links - :doc:`/../toolbar`. This makes it easier to run search-and-replaces when items are moved in the structure.

Contributing translations¶

For translators we have a Transifex account where you can translate the .po files and don’t need to install git or mercurial to be able to contribute. All changes there will be automatically sent to the project.

Top translations django-cms core:

Code and project management¶

We use our GitHub project for managing both django CMS code and development activity.

This document describes how we manage tickets on GitHub. By “tickets”, we mean GitHub issues and pull requests (in fact as far as GitHub is concerned, pull requests are simply a species of issue).

Issues¶

Raising an issue¶

Attention

If you think you have discovered a security issue in our code, please report it privately, by emailing us at security@django-cms.org.

Please do not raise it on:

IRC

GitHub

either of our email lists

or in any other public forum until we have had a chance to deal with it.

Except in the case of security matters, of course, you’re welcome to raise issues in any way that suits you - on one of our email lists, or the IRC channel or in person if you happen to meet another django CMS developer.

It’s very helpful though if you don’t just raise an issue by mentioning it to people, but actually file it too, and that means creating a new issue on GitHub.

There’s an art to creating a good issue report.

The Title needs to be both succinct and informative. “show_sub_menu displays incorrect nodes when used with soft_root” is helpful, whereas “Menus are broken” is not.

In the Description of your report, we’d like to see:

how to reproduce the problem
what you expected to happen
what did happen (a traceback is often helpful, if you get one)

Getting your issue accepted¶

Other django CMS developers will see your issue, and will be able to comment. A core developer may add further comments, or a label.

The important thing at this stage is to have your issue accepted. This means that we’ve agreed it’s a genuine issue, and represents something we can or are willing to do in the CMS.

You may be asked for more information before it’s accepted, and there may be some discussion before it is. It could also be rejected as a non-issue (it’s not actually a problem) or won’t fix (addressing your issue is beyond the scope of the project, or is incompatible with our other aims).

Feel free to explain why you think a decision to reject your issue is incorrect - very few decisions are final, and we’re always happy to correct our mistakes.

How we process tickets¶

Tickets should be:

given a status
marked with needs
marked with a kind
marked with the components they apply to
marked with miscellaneous other labels
commented

A ticket’s status and needs are the most important of these. They tell us two key things:

status: what stage the ticket is at
needs: what next actions are required to move it forward

Needless to say, these labels need to be applied carefully, according to the rules of this system.

GitHub’s interface means that we have no alternative but to use colours to help identify our tickets. We’re sorry about this. We’ve tried to use colours that will cause the fewest issues for colour-blind people, so we don’t use green (since we use red) or yellow (since we use blue) labels, but we are aware it’s not ideal.

django CMS ticket processing system rules¶

one and only one status must be applied to each ticket
a healthy ticket (blue) cannot have any critical needs (red)
when closed, tickets must have either a healthy (blue) or dead (black) status
a ticket with critical needs must not have non-critical needs or miscellaneous other labels
has patch and on hold labels imply a related pull request, which must be linked-to when these labels are applied
component, non-critical need and miscellaneous other labels should be applied as seems appropriate

Status¶

The first thing we do is decide whether we accept the ticket, whether it’s a pull request or an issue. An accepted status means the ticket is healthy, and will have a blue label.

Basically, it’s good for open tickets to be healthy (blue), because that means they are going somewhere.

Important

Accepting a ticket means marking it as healthy, with one of the blue labels.

issues

The bar for status: accepted is high. The status can be revoked at any time, and should be when appropriate. If the issue needs a design decision, expert opinion or more info, it can’t be accepted.

pull requests

When a pull request is accepted, it should become work in progress or (more rarely) ready for review or even ready to be merged, in those rare cases where a perfectly-formed and unimprovable pull request lands in our laps. As for issues, if it needs a design decision, expert opinion or more info, it can’t be accepted.

No issue or pull request can have both a blue (accepted) and a red, grey or black label at the same time.

Preferably, the ticket should either be accepted (blue), rejected (black) or marked as having critical needs (red) as soon as possible. It’s important that open tickets should have a clear status, not least for the sake of the person who submitted it so that they know it’s being assessed.

Tickets should not be allowed to linger indefinitely with critical (red) needs. If the opinions or information required to accept the ticket are not forthcoming, the ticket should be declared unhealthy (grey) with marked for rejection and rejected (black) at the next release.

Needs¶

Critical needs (red) affect status.

Non-critical needs labels (pink) can be added as appropriate (and of course, removed as work progresses) to pull requests.

It’s important that open tickets should have a clear needs labels, so that it’s apparent what needs to be done to make progress with it.

Kinds and components¶

Of necessity, these are somewhat porous categories. For example, it’s not always absolutely clear whether a pull request represents an enhancement or a bug-fix, and tickets can apply to multiple parts of the CMS - so do the best you can with them.

Other labels¶

backport, blocker, has patch or easy pickings labels should be applied as appropriate, to healthy (blue) tickets only.

Comments¶

At any time, people can comment on the ticket, of course. Although only core maintainers can change labels, anyone can suggest changing a label.

Label reference¶

Components and kinds should be self-explanatory, but statuses, needs and miscellaneous other labels are clarified below.

Statuses¶

A ticket’s status is its position in the pipeline - its point in our workflow.

Every issue should have a status, and be given one as soon as possible. An issue should have only one status applied to it.

Many of these statuses apply equally well to both issues and pull requests, but some make sense only for one or the other:

accepted

(issues only) The issue has been accepted as a genuine issue that needs to be addressed. Note that it doesn’t necessarily mean we will do what the issue suggests, if it makes a suggestion - simply that we agree that there is an issue to be resolved.

non-issue

The issue or pull request are in some way mistaken - the ‘problem’ is in fact correct and expected behaviour, or the problems were caused by (for example) misconfiguration.

When this label is applied, an explanation must be provided in a comment.

won’t fix

The issue or pull request imply changes to django CMS’s design or behaviour that the core team consider incompatible with our chosen approach.

When this label is applied, an explanation must be provided in a comment.

marked for rejection

We’ve been unable to reproduce the issue, and it has lain dormant for a long time. Or, it’s a pull request of low significance that requires more work, and looks like it might have been abandoned. These tickets will be closed when we make the next release.

When this label is applied, an explanation must be provided in a comment.

work in progress

(pull requests only) Work is on-going.

The author of the pull request should include “(work in progress)” in its title, and remove this when they feel it’s ready for final review.

ready for review

(pull requests only) The pull request needs to be reviewed. (Anyone can review and make comments recommending that it be merged (or indeed, any further action) but only a core maintainer can change the label.)

ready to be merged

(pull requests only) The pull request has successfully passed review. Core maintainers should not mark their own code, except in the simplest of cases, as ready to be merged, nor should they mark any code as ready to be merged and then merge it themselves - there should be another person involved in the process.

When the pull request is merged, the label should be removed.

Needs¶

If an issue or pull request lacks something that needs to be provided for it to progress further, this should be marked with a “needs” label. A “needs” label indicates an action that should be taken in order to advance the item’s status.

Critical needs¶

Critical needs (red) mean that a ticket is ‘unhealthy’ and won’t be accepted (issues) or work in progress, ready for review or ready to be merged until those needs are addressed. In other words, no ticket can have both a blue and a red label.)

more info: Not enough information has been provided to allow us to proceed, for example to reproduce a bug or to explain the purpose of a pull request.
expert opinion: The issue or pull request presents a technical problem that needs to be looked at by a member of the core maintenance team who has a special insight into that particular aspect of the system.
design decision: The issue or pull request has deeper implications for the CMS, that need to be considered carefully before we can proceed further.

Non-critical needs¶

A healthy (blue) ticket can have non-critical needs:

patch: (issues only) The issue has been given a status: accepted, but now someone needs to write the patch to address it.
tests
docs: (pull requests only) Code without docs or tests?! In django CMS? No way!

Other¶

has patch

(issues only) A patch intended to address the issue exists. This doesn’t imply that the patch will be accepted, or even that it contains a viable solution.

When this label is applied, a comment should cross-reference the pull request(s) containing the patch.

easy pickings

An easy-to-fix issue, or an easy-to-review pull request - newcomers to django CMS development are encouraged to tackle easy pickings tickets.

blocker

We can’t make the next release without resolving this issue.

backport

Any patch will should be backported to a previous release, either because it has security implications or it improves documentation.

on hold

(pull requests only) The pull request has to wait for a higher-priority pull request to land first, to avoid complex merges or extra work later. Any on hold pull request is by definition work in progress.

When this label is applied, a comment should cross-reference the other pull request(s).

Running and writing tests¶

Good code needs tests.

A project like django CMS simply can’t afford to incorporate new code that doesn’t come with its own tests.

Tests provide some necessary minimum confidence: they can show the code will behave as it expected, and help identify what’s going wrong if something breaks it.

Not insisting on good tests when code is committed is like letting a gang of teenagers without a driving license borrow your car on a Friday night, even if you think they are very nice teenagers and they really promise to be careful.

We certainly do want your contributions and fixes, but we need your tests with them too. Otherwise, we’d be compromising our codebase.

So, you are going to have to include tests if you want to contribute. However, writing tests is not particularly difficult, and there are plenty of examples to crib from in the code to help you.

Running tests¶

There’s more than one way to do this, but here’s one to help you get started:

# create a virtual environment
virtualenv test-django-cms

# activate it
cd test-django-cms/
source bin/activate

# get django CMS from GitHub
git clone git@github.com:divio/django-cms.git

# install the dependencies for testing
# note that requirements files for other Django versions are also provided
pip install -r django-cms/test_requirements/django-X.Y.txt

# run the test suite
# note that you must be in the django-cms directory when you do this,
# otherwise you'll get "Template not found" errors
cd django-cms
python manage.py test

It can take a few minutes to run.

When you run tests against your own new code, don’t forget that it’s useful to repeat them for different versions of Python and Django.

Problems running the tests¶

We are working to improve the performance and reliability of our test suite. We’re aware of certain problems, but need feedback from people using a wide range of systems and configurations in order to benefit from their experience.

Please use the open issue #3684 Test suite is error-prone on our GitHub repository to report such problems.

If you can help improve the test suite, your input will be especially valuable.

OS X users¶

In some versions of OS X, gettext needs to be installed so that it is available to Django. If you run the tests and find that various tests in cms.tests.frontend and cms.tests.reversion_tests.ReversionTestCase raise errors, it’s likely that you have this problem.

A solution is:

brew install gettext && brew link --force gettext

(This requires the installation of Homebrew)

ERROR: test_copy_to_from_clipboard (cms.tests.frontend.PlaceholderBasicTests)¶

You may find that a single frontend test raises an error. This sometimes happens, for some users, when the entire suite is run. To work around this you can invoke the test class on its own:

manage.py test cms.PlaceholderBasicTests

and it should then run without errors.

Advanced testing options¶

Run manage.py test --help for the full list of advanced options.

Use --parallel to distribute the test cases across your CPU cores.

Use --failed to only run the tests that failed during the last run.

Use --retest to run the tests using the same configuration as the last run.

Use --vanilla to bypass the advanced testing system and use the built-in Django test command.

Use --migrate to run migrations during tests.

To use a different database, set the DATABASE_URL environment variable to a dj-database-url compatible value.

Running Frontend Tests¶

We have two types of frontend tests: unit tests and integration tests. For unit tests we are using Karma as a test runner and Jasmine as a test framework.

Integration tests run on PhantomJS and are built using CasperJS.

In order to be able to run them you need to install necessary dependencies as outlined in frontend tooling installation instructions.

Linting runs against the test files as well with gulp tests:lint. In order to run linting continuously, do:

gulp watch

Unit tests¶

Unit tests can be run like this:

gulp tests:unit

If your code is failing and you want to run only specific files, you can provide the --tests parameter with comma separated file names, like this:

gulp tests:unit --tests=cms.base,cms.modal

If you want to run tests continuously you can use the watch command:

gulp tests:unit:watch

This will rerun the suite whenever source or test file is changed. By default the tests are running on PhantomJS, but when running Karma in watch mode you can also visit the server it spawns with an actual browser.

INFO [karma]: Karma v0.13.15 server started at http://localhost:9876/

On Travis CI we are using SauceLabs integration to run tests in a set of different real browsers, but you can opt out of running them on saucelabs using [skip saucelabs] marker in the commit message, similar to how you would skip the build entirely using [skip ci].

We’re using Jasmine as a test framework and Istanbul as a code coverage tool.

Integration tests¶

In order to run integration tests you’ll have to install at least the version of django CMS from the current directory and djangocms-helper into into your virtualenv. All commands should be run from the root of the repository. If you do not have virtualenv yet, create and activate it first:

virtualenv env
. env/bin/activate

Then install minimum required dependencies:

pip install -r test_requirements/django-1.8.txt
pip install -e .

Now you’ll be able to run a tests with this command:

gulp tests:integration

The command will start a server, wait for a minute for the migrations to run and will run integration tests against it. It will use testdb.sqlite as the database. If you want to start with a clean state you could use --clean argument.

Some tests require different server configuration, so it is possible that the server will stop, and another variation will start with different arguments. Take a look inside testserver.py if you need to customise the test server settings.

While debugging you can use the --tests parameter as well in order to run test suites separately.:

gulp tests:integration --tests=pagetree
gulp tests:integration --tests=loginAdmin,toolbar

If specified tests require different servers they will be grouped to speed things up, so the order might not be the same as you specify in the argument.

When running locally, it sometimes helps to visualise the tests output. For that you can install casper-summoner utility (npm install -g casper-summoner), and run the tests with additional --screenshots argument. It will create screenshots folder with screenshots of almost every step of each test. Subsequent runs will override the existing files. Note that this is experimental and may change in the future.

It might sometimes be useful not to restart the server when creating the tests, for that you can run python testserver.py with necessary arguments in one shell and gulp tests:integration --no-server in another. However you would need to clean the state yourself if the test you’ve been writing fails.

Writing tests¶

Contributing tests is widely regarded as a very prestigious contribution (you’re making everybody’s future work much easier by doing so). We’ll always accept contributions of a test without code, but not code without a test - which should give you an idea of how important tests are.

What we need¶

We have a wide and comprehensive library of unit-tests and integration tests with good coverage.

Generally tests should be:

Unitary (as much as possible). i.e. should test as much as possible only one function/method/class. That’s the very definition of unit tests. Integration tests are interesting too obviously, but require more time to maintain since they have a higher probability of breaking.
Short running. No hard numbers here, but if your one test doubles the time it takes for everybody to run them, it’s probably an indication that you’re doing it wrong.
Easy to understand. If your test code isn’t obvious, please add comments on what it’s doing.

Code of Conduct¶

Participation in the django CMS project is governed by a code of conduct.

The django CMS community is a pleasant one to be involved in for everyone, and we wish to keep it that way. Participants are expected to behave and communicate with others courteously and respectfully, whether online or in person, and to be welcoming, friendly and polite.

We will not tolerate abusive behaviour or language or any form of harassment.

Individuals whose behaviour is a cause for concern will be give a warning, and if necessary will be excluded from participation in official django CMS channels (email lists, IRC channels, etc) and events. The Django Software Foundation will also be informed of the issue.

Raising a concern¶

If you have a concern about the behaviour of any member of the django CMS community, please contact one of the members of the core development team.

Your concerns will be taken seriously, treated as confidential and investigated. You will be informed, in writing and as promptly as possible, of the outcome.

Release notes & upgrade information¶

Some versions of django CMS present more complex upgrade paths than others, and some require you to take action. It is strongly recommended to read the release notes carefully when upgrading.

It goes without saying that you should backup your database before embarking on any process that makes changes to your database.

3.3.4 release notes¶

What’s new in 3.3.4¶

Security Fixes¶

Fixed a security vulnerability in the page redirect field which allowed users to insert JavaScript code.
Fixed a security vulnerability where the next parameter for the toolbar login was not sanitised and could point to another domain.

Thanks¶

Thanks to Mark Walker and Anthony Steinhauser for reporting the security issues.

3.3.3 release notes¶

What’s new in 3.3.3¶

Bug Fixes¶

Fixed a bug where where the plugin picker would display the plugin names translated in the request language instead of the user’s language.
Fixed a bug which raised an exception when the AdvancedSettingsForm failed validation on certain fields.
Fixed a bug with widgets not initialising correctly sometimes
Fixed a tree corruption when moving a published page under a published one.
Fixed a tree corruption caused by fix-tree when an unpublished page is parent to a published page.
Fixed an error when publishing a page that has an unpublished child page who is parent to a published page.
Fixed a bug where moving a published page under a page marked as pending publishing is left as published instead of being marked as pending publishing.
Fixed AttributeError when using create_page in management command
Fixed a bug in getting the language from current request which can cause error 500
API functions are now atomic by design (use the @atomic decorator)
Fixed a bug where a Page was created with it’s languages field set to None.

3.3.2 release notes¶

What’s new in 3.3.2¶

Bug Fixes¶

Fixed a bug where it wasn’t possible to scroll the toolbar menu if scroll started on the disabled menu item on small screens.
Fixed a regression when standalone CMS Widgets wouldn’t work due to non-existing JavaScript dependencies.
Fixed a possible recursion error when using the Alias plugin.
Fixed a migration error (0014) that occurred under certain environments.
Fixed a regression where submit handlers for modal form wouldn’t be executed under certain circumstances

3.3.1 release notes¶

What’s new in 3.3.1¶

Bug Fixes¶

Fixed a bug when clicking inside sideframe didn’t close toolbar dropdowns
Fixed a bug where saving errors wouldn’t be shown in the modal window.
Fixed a misleading message when modal iframe contents couldn’t be accessed.
Added a workaround for a bug when plugins couldn’t be deleted in Firefox with 1Password extension installed
Changed CMS JavaScript bundling from simple concatenation to webpack-based. Using CMS Javascript modules directly is no longer possible.
Fixed an issue where plugins that have no immediate DOM representation wouldn’t be editable or movable.
Fixed a regression in which plugins that defined parent_classes would not show up in the structure mode.
Backported a performance fix from Django to avoid extra queries when plugins access their parent via the parent link field cmsplugin_ptr.
Fixed typo in AdvancedSettingsForm error messages.
Fixed long standing bug that prevented apphook endspoints from being CSRF exempt.
Changed default value for CMS_INTERNAL_IPS.
Fixed an issue that prevented non superusers from copying all plugins in a placeholder.
Fixed an issue where plugin permissions where not checked when clearing a placeholder.
Fixed an issue where plugin permissions where not checked when deleting a page or page translation.
Fixed a useless placeholders edit permissions checking when not in edit mode.
Fixed a bug where users with limited permissions could not interact with page tree dropdowns.
Fixed a bug where Django Compressor could not be used on the sekizai js block.
Fixed an issue when plugin that is aliased on the same page couldn’t be operated upon in the structure mode.
Removed globally unique constraint for Apphook configs.
Fixed an encoding error when running the publisher-publish command.
Fixed render_model template tags to work with models containing deferred fields.
Fixed regression introduced in 3.3.0 when using the render_plugin_toolbar_config template tag directly.
Fixed error in retrieving placeholder label from configuration.
Adjusted migrations to no longer use models directly.
Fixed pickling support for plugins.
Updated contributing policy documentation.
Fixed several documentation typos.
Changed all readthedocs links to use .io instead of .org
Fixed text overflow in the page tree dropdown menu.

Features¶

Added a warning for users who are leaving the page or closing the plugin modal by pressing ESC to prevent accidental loss of content.
Added support for tiered CMS_PLACEHOLDER_CONF.
Introduced new logic to leverage Django’s dynamic related name functionality on CMSPlugin subclasses for the parent link field.

3.3 release notes¶

django CMS 3.3 has been planned largely as a consolidation release, to build on the progress made in 3.2 and pave the way for the future ones.

The largest major change is dropped support for Django 1.6 and 1.7, and Python 2.6 followed by major code cleanup to remove compatibility shims.

What’s new in 3.3¶

Removed support for Django 1.6, 1.7 and python 2.6
Changed the default value of CMSPlugin.position to 0 instead of null
Refactored the language menu to allow for better integration with many languages
Refactored management commands completely for better consistency
Fixed “failed to load resource” for favicon on welcome screen
Changed behaviour of toolbar CSS classes: cms-toolbar-expanded class is only added now when toolbar is fully expanded and not at the beginning of the animation. cms-toolbar-expanding and cms-toolbar-collapsing classes are added at the beginning of their respective animations.
Added unit tests for CMS JavaScript files
Added frontend integration tests (written with Casper JS)
Removed frontend integration tests (written with Selenium)
Added the ability to declare cache expiration periods on a per-plugin basis
Improved UI of page tree
Improved UI in various minor ways
Added a new setting CMS_INTERNAL_IPS for defining a set of IP addresses for which the toolbar will appear for authorized users. If left unset, retains the existing behavior of allowing toolbar for authorized users at any IP address.
Changed behaviour of sideframe; is no longer resizable, opens to 90% of the screen or 100% on small screens.
Removed some unnecessary reloads after closing sideframe.
Added the ability to make pagetree actions work on currently picked language
Removed deprecated CMS_TOOLBAR_SIMPLE_STRUCTURE_MODE setting
Introduced the method get_cache_expiration on CMSPluginBase to be used by plugins for declaring their rendered content’s period of validity.
Introduced the method get_vary_cache_on on CMSPluginBase to be used by plugins for declaring VARY headers.
Improved performance of plugin moving; no longer saves all plugins inside the placeholder.
Fixed breadcrumbs of recently moved plugin reflecting previous position in the tree
Refactored plugin adding logic to no longer create the plugin before the user submits the form.
Improved the behaviour of the placeholder cache
Improved fix-tree command to sort by position and path when rebuilding positions.
Fixed several regressions and tree corruptions on page move.
Added new class method on CMSPlugin requires_parent_plugin
Fixed behaviour of get_child_classes; now correctly calculates child classes when not configured in the placeholder.
Removed internal ExtraMenuItems tag.
Removed internal PluginChildClasses tag.
Modified RenderPlugin tag; no longer renders the content.html template and instead just returns the results.
Added a get_cached_template method to the Toolbar() main class to reuse loaded templates per request. It works like Django’s cached template loader, but on a request basis.
Added a new method get_urls() on the appbase class to get CMSApp.urls, to allow passing a page object to it.
Changed JavaScript linting from JSHint and JSCS to ESLint
Fixed a bug when it was possible to drag plugin into clipboard
Fixed a bug where clearing clipboard was closing any open modal
Added CMS_WIZARD_CONTENT_PLACEHOLDER setting
Renamed the CMS_WIZARD_* settings to CMS_PAGE_WIZARD_*
Deprecated the old-style wizard-related settings
Improved documentation further
Improved handling of uninstalled apphooks
Fixed toolbar placement when foundation is installed
Fixed an issue which could lead to an apphook without a slug
Fixed numerous frontend issues
Added contribution policies documentation
Corrected an issue where someone could see and use the internal placeholder plugin in the structure board
Fixed a regression where the first page created was not automatically published
Corrected the instructions for using the delete-orphaned-plugins command
Re-pinned django-treebeard to >=4.0.1

Upgrading to 3.3¶

A database migration is required because the default value of CMSPlugin.position was set to 0 instead of null.

Please make sure that your current database is consistent and in a healthy state, and make a copy of the database before proceeding further.

Then run:

python manage.py migrate
python manage.py cms fix-tree

Deprecation of Old-Style Page Wizard Settings¶

In this release, we introduce a new naming scheme for the Page Wizard settings that better reflects that they effect the CMS’s Page Wizards, rather than all wizards. This will also allow future settings for different wizards with a smaller chance of confusion or naming-collision.

This release simultaneously deprecates the old naming scheme for these settings. Support for the old naming scheme will be dropped in version 3.5.0.

Action Required¶

Developers using any of the following settings in their projects should rename them as follows at their earliest convenience.

CMS_WIZARD_DEFAULT_TEMPLATE => CMS_PAGE_WIZARD_DEFAULT_TEMPLATE
CMS_WIZARD_CONTENT_PLUGIN => CMS_PAGE_WIZARD_CONTENT_PLUGIN
CMS_WIZARD_CONTENT_PLUGIN_BODY => CMS_PAGE_WIZARD_CONTENT_PLUGIN_BODY
CMS_WIZARD_CONTENT_PLACEHOLDER => CMS_PAGE_WIZARD_CONTENT_PLACEHOLDER

The CMS will accept both-schemes until 3.5.0 when support for the old scheme will be dropped. During this transition period, the CMS prefers the new-style naming if both schemes are used in a project’s settings.

Backward incompatible changes¶

Management commands¶

Management commands uses now argparse instead of optparse, following the Django deprecation of the latter API.

The commands behaviour has remained untouched.

Detailed changes:

commands now use argparse subcommand API which leads to slightly different help output and other internal differences. If you use the commands by using Django’s call_command function you will have to adapt the command invocation to reflect this.

some commands have been rename replacing underscores with hyphens for consistency

all arguments are now non-positional. If you use the commands by using Django’s call_command function you will have to adapt the command invocation to reflect this.

Signature changes¶

The signatures of the toolbar methods get_or_create_menu have a new kwarg disabled inserted (not appended). This was done to maintain consistency with other, existing toolbar methods. The signatures are now:

cms.toolbar.items.Menu.get_or_create_menu(key, verbose_name, disabled=False, side=LEFT, position=None)

cms.toolbar.toolbar.CMSToolbar.get_or_create_menu(key, verbose_name=None, disabled=False, side=LEFT, position=None)

It should only affect developers who use kwargs as positional args.

3.2.5 release notes¶

What’s new in 3.2.5¶

Note

This release is identical to 3.2.4, but had to be released also as 3.2.4 due to a Python wheel packaging issue.

Bug Fixes¶

Fix cache settings
Fix user lookup for view restrictions/page permissions when using raw id field
Fixed regression when page couldn’t be copied if CMS_PERMISSION was False
Fixes an issue relating to uninstalling a namespaced application
Adds “Can change page” permission
Fixes a number of page-tree issues the could lead data corruption under certain conditions
Addresses security vulnerabilities in the render_model template tag that could lead to escalation of privileges or other security issues.
Addresses a security vulnerability in the cms’ usage of the messages framework
Fixes security vulnerabilities in custom FormFields that could lead to escalation of privileges or other security issues.

Important

This version of django CMS introduces a new setting: CMS_UNESCAPED_RENDER_MODEL_TAGS with a default value of True. This default value allows upgrades to occur without forcing django CMS users to do anything, but, please be aware that this setting continues to allow known security vulnerabilities to be present. Due to this, the new setting is immediately deprecated and will be removed in a near-future release.

To immediately improve the security of your project and to prepare for future releases of django CMS and related addons, the project administrator should carefully review each use of the render_model template tags provided by django CMS. He or she is encouraged to ensure that all content which is rendered to a page using this template tag is cleansed of any potentially harmful HTML markup, CSS styles or Javascript. Once the administrator or developer is satisfied that the content is clean, he or she can add the “safe” filter parameter to the render_model template tag if the content should be rendered without escaping. If there is no need to render the content un-escaped, no further action is required.

Once all template tags have been reviewed and adjusted where necessary, the administrator should set CMS_UNESCAPED_RENDER_MODEL_TAGS = False in the project settings. At that point, the project is more secure and will be ready for any future upgrades.

DjangoCMS Text CKEditor¶

Action required¶

CMS 3.2.1 is not compatible with djangocms-text-ckeditor < 2.8.1. If you’re using djangocms-text-ckeditor, please upgrade to 2.8.1 or later.

3.2.4 release notes¶

What’s new in 3.2.4¶

Bug Fixes¶

Fix cache settings
Fix user lookup for view restrictions/page permissions when using raw id field
Fixed regression when page couldn’t be copied if CMS_PERMISSION was False
Fixes an issue relating to uninstalling a namespaced application
Adds “Can change page” permission
Fixes a number of page-tree issues the could lead data corruption under certain conditions
Addresses security vulnerabilities in the render_model template tag that could lead to escalation of privileges or other security issues.
Addresses a security vulnerability in the cms’ usage of the messages framework
Fixes security vulnerabilities in custom FormFields that could lead to escalation of privileges or other security issues.

Important

This version of django CMS introduces a new setting: CMS_UNESCAPED_RENDER_MODEL_TAGS with a default value of True. This default value allows upgrades to occur without forcing django CMS users to do anything, but, please be aware that this setting continues to allow known security vulnerabilities to be present. Due to this, the new setting is immediately deprecated and will be removed in a near-future release.

To immediately improve the security of your project and to prepare for future releases of django CMS and related addons, the project administrator should carefully review each use of the render_model template tags provided by django CMS. He or she is encouraged to ensure that all content which is rendered to a page using this template tag is cleansed of any potentially harmful HTML markup, CSS styles or JavaScript. Once the administrator or developer is satisfied that the content is clean, he or she can add the “safe” filter parameter to the render_model template tag if the content should be rendered without escaping. If there is no need to render the content unescaped, no further action is required.

Once all template tags have been reviewed and adjusted where necessary, the administrator should set CMS_UNESCAPED_RENDER_MODEL_TAGS = False in the project settings. At that point, the project is more secure and will be ready for any future upgrades.

DjangoCMS Text CKEditor¶

Action required¶

CMS 3.2.1 is not compatible with djangocms-text-ckeditor < 2.8.1. If you’re using djangocms-text-ckeditor, please upgrade to 2.8.1 or later.

3.2.3 release notes¶

What’s new in 3.2.3¶

Bug Fixes¶

Fix the display of hyphenated language codes in the page tree
Fix a family of issues relating to unescaped translations in the page tree

3.2.2 release notes¶

What’s new in 3.2.2¶

Improvements¶

Substantial “under-the-hood” improvements to the page tree resulting in significant reduction of page-tree reloads and generally cleaner code
Update jsTree version to 3.2.1 with slight adaptations to the page tree
Improve the display and usability of the language menu, especially in cases where there are many languages
Documentation improvements

Bug Fixes¶

Fix an issue relating to search fields in plugins
Fix an issue where the app-resolver would trigger locales into migrations
Fix cache settings
Fix ToolbarMiddleware.is_cms_request logic
Fix numerous Django 1.9 deprecations
Numerous other improvements to overall stability and code quality

Model Relationship Back-References and Django 1.9¶

Django 1.9 is lot stricter about collisions in the related_names of relationship fields than previous versions of Django. This has brought to light issues in django CMS relating to the private field CMSPlugin.cmsplugin_ptr. The issue becomes apparent when multiple packages are installed that provide plugins with the same model class name. A good example would be if you have the package djangocms-file installed, which has a poorly named CMSPlugin model subclass called File, then any other package that has a plugin with a field named ”file” would most likely cause an issue. Considering that djangocms-file is a very common plugin to use and a field name of “file” is not uncommon in other plugins, this is less than ideal.

Fortunately, developers can correct these issues in their own projects while they await improvements in django CMS. There is an internal field that is created when instantiating plugins: CMSPlugin.cmsplugin_ptr. This private field is declared in the CMSPlugin base class and is populated on instantiation using the lower-cased model name of the CMSPlugin subclass that is being registered.

A subclass to CMSPlugin can declare their own cmsplugin_ptr field to immediately fix this issue. The easiest solution is to declare this field with a related_name of “+”. In typical Django fashion, this will suppress the back-reference and prevent any collisions. However, if the back-reference is required for some reason (very rare), then we recommend using the pattern %(app_label)s_%(class_name)s. In fact, in version 3.3 of django CMS, this is precisely the string-template that the reference setup will use to create the name. Here’s an example:

class MyPlugin(CMSPlugin):
    class Meta:
        app_label = 'my_package'

    cmsplugin_ptr = models.OneToOneField(
        CMSPlugin,
        related_name='my_package_my_plugin',
        parent_link=True
    )

    # other fields, etc.
    # ...

Please note that CMSPlugin.cmsplugin_ptr will remain a private field.

Notice of Upcoming Change in 3.3¶

As outlined in the section immediately above, the pattern currently used to derive a related_name for the private field CMSPlugin.cmsplugin_ptr may result in frequent collisions. In django CMS 3.3, this string-template will be changed to utilise both the app_label and the model class name. In the majority of cases, this will not affect developers or users, but if your project uses these back-references for some reason, please be aware of this change and plan accordingly.

Treebeard corruption¶

Prior to 3.2.1 moving or pasting nested plugins could lead to some non-fatal tree corruptions, raising an error when adding plugins under the newly pasted plugins.

To fix these problems, upgrade to 3.2.1 or later and then run manage.py cms fix-tree command to repair the tree.

DjangoCMS Text CKEditor¶

Action required¶

CMS 3.2.2 is not compatible with djangocms-text-ckeditor < 2.8.1. If you’re using djangocms-text-ckeditor, please upgrade to 2.8.1 or up.

3.2.1 release notes¶

What’s new in 3.2.1¶

Improvements¶

Add support for Django 1.9 (with some deprecation warnings).
Add support for django-reversion 1.10+ (required by Django 1.9+).
Add placeholder name to the edit tooltip.
Add attr['is_page']=True to CMS Page navigation nodes.
Add Django and Python versions to debug bar info tooltip

Bug Fixes¶

Fix an issue with refreshing the UI when switching CMS language.
Fix an issue with sideframe urls not being remembered after reload.
Fix breadcrumb in page revision list.
Fix clash with Foundation that caused “Add plugin” button to be unusable.
Fix a tree corruption when pasting a nested plugin under another plugin.
Fix message with CMS version not showing up on hover in debug mode.
Fix messages not being positioned correctly in debug mode.
Fix an issue where plugin parent restrictions where not respected when pasting a plugin.
Fix an issue where “Copy all” menu item could have been clicked on empty placeholder.
Fix a bug where page tree styles didn’t load from STATIC_URL that pointed to a different host.
Fix an issue where the side-frame wouldn’t refresh under some circumstances.
Honour CMS_RAW_ID_USERS in GlobalPagePermissionAdmin.

Treebeard corruption¶

Prior to 3.2.1 moving or pasting nested plugins would lead to some non-fatal tree corruptions, raising an error when adding plugins under the newly pasted plugins.

To fix these problems, upgrade to 3.2.1 and then run manage.py cms fix-tree command to repair the tree.

DjangoCMS Text CKEditor¶

Action required¶

CMS 3.2.1 is not compatible with djangocms-text-ckeditor < 2.8.1. If you’re using djangocms-text-ckeditor, please upgrade to 2.8.1 or up.

3.2 release notes¶

django CMS 3.2 introduces touch-screen support, significant improvements to the structure-board, and numerous other updates and fixes for the frontend. Behind the scenes, auto-reloading following apphook configuration changes will make life simpler for all users.

Warning

Upgrading from previous versions

3.2 introduces some changes that require action if you are upgrading from a previous version. Please read Upgrading django CMS 3.1 to 3.2 for a step-by-step guide to the process of upgrading from 3.1 to 3.2.

What’s new in 3.2¶

new welcome page to help new users
touch-screen support for most editing interfaces, for sizes from small tablets to table-top devices
enhanced and polished user interface
much-needed improvements to the structure-board
enhancements to components such as the pop-up plugin editor, sideframe (now called the overlay) and the toolbar
significant speed improvements on loading, HTTP requests and file sizes
restarts are no longer required when changing apphook configurations
a new content wizard system, adaptable to arbitrary content types

Changes that require attention¶

Touch interface support¶

For general information about touch interface support, see the touch screen device notes in the documentation.

Important

These notes about touch interface support apply only to the django CMS admin and editing interfaces. The visitor-facing published site is wholly independent of this, and the responsibility of the site developer. A good site should already work well for its visitors, whatever interface they use!

Numerous aspects of the CMS and its interface have been updated to work well with touch-screen devices. There are some restrictions and warnings that need to be borne in mind.

Device support¶

Smaller devices such as most phones are too small to be adequately usable. For example, your Apple Watch is sadly unlikely to provide a very good django CMS editing experience.

Older devices will often lack the performance to support a usefully responsive frontend editing/administration interface.

There are some device-specific issues still to be resolved. Some of these relate to the CKEditor (the default django CMS text editor). We will continue to work on these and they will be addressed in a future release.

See Device support for information about devices that have been tested and confirmed to work well, and about known issues affecting touch-screen device support.

Feedback required¶

We’ve tested the CMS interface extensively, but will be very keen to have feedback from other users - device reports, bug reports and general suggestions and opinions are very welcome.

Bug-fixes¶

An issue in which {% placeholder %} template tags ignored the lang parameter has been fixed.

However this may affect the behaviour of your templates, as now a previously-ignored parameter will be recognised. If you used the lang parameter in these template tags you may be affected: check the behaviour of your templates after upgrading.

Content wizards¶

Content creation wizards can help simplify production of content, and can be created to handle non-CMS content too.

For a quick introduction to using a wizard as a content editor, see the user tutorial.

New `ApphookReloadMiddleware`¶

Until now, changes to apphooks have required a restart of the server in order to take effect. A new optional middleware class, cms.middleware.utils.ApphookReloadMiddleware, makes this automatic.

For developers¶

Various improvements have been implemented to make developing with and for django CMS easier. These include:

improvements to frontend code, to comply better with aldryn-boilerplate-bootstrap3
changes to directory structure for frontend related components such as JavaScript and SASS.
We no longer use develop.py; we now use manage.py for all development tasks. See Contributing a patch for examples.
We’ve moved our widgets.py JavaScript to static/cms/js/widgets.

Code formatting¶

We’ve switched from tabs (in some places) to four spaces everywhere. See Contributing code for more on formatting.

gulp.js¶

We now use gulp.js for linting, compressing and bundling of frontend files.

.editorconfig file¶

We’ve added a .editorconfig (at the root of the project) to provide cues to text editors.

Automated spelling checks for documentation¶

Documentation is now checked for spelling. A make spelling command is available now when working on documentation, and our Travis Continuous Integration server also runs these checks.

See the Spelling section in the documentation.

New structure board¶

The structure board is cleaner and easier to understand. It now displays its elements in a tree, rather than in a series of nested boxes.

You can optionally enable the old appearance and behaviour with the CMS_TOOLBAR_SIMPLE_STRUCTURE_MODE setting (this option will be removed in 3.3).

Replaced the sideframe with an overlay¶

The sideframe that could be expanded and collapsed to reveal a view of the admin and other controls has been replaced by a simpler and more elegant overlay mechanism.

The API documentation still refers to the sideframe, because it is invoked in the same way, and what has changed is merely the behaviour in the user’s browser.

In other words, sideframe and the overlay refer to different versions of the same thing.

New startup page¶

A new startup mode makes it easier for users (especially new users) to dive straight into editing when launching a new site. See the Tutorial for more.

Known issues¶

The sub-pages of a page with an apphook will be unreachable (404 page not found), due to internal URL resolution mechanisms in the CMS. Though it’s unlikely that most users will need sub-pages of this kind (typically, an apphooked page will create its own sub-pages) this issue will be addressed in a forthcoming release.

Backward-incompatible changes¶

See the Frontend code documentation.

There are no other known backward-incompatible changes.

Upgrading django CMS 3.1 to 3.2¶

Please note any changes that require action above, and take action accordingly.

A database migration is required (a new model, UrlconfRevision has been added as part of the apphook reload mechanism):

Note also that any third-party applications you update may have their own migrations, so as always, before upgrading, please make sure that your current database is consistent and in a healthy state, and make a copy of the database before proceeding further.

Then run:

python manage.py migrate

to migrate.

Otherwise django CMS 3.2 represents a fairly easy upgrade path.

Pending deprecations¶

In django CMS 3.3:

Django 1.6, 1.7 and Python 2.6 will no longer be supported. If you still using these versions, you are strongly encouraged to begin exploring the upgrade process to a newer version.

The CMS_TOOLBAR_SIMPLE_STRUCTURE_MODE setting will be removed.

3.1.5 release notes¶

What’s new in 3.1.5¶

Bug Fixes¶

Fixed a tree corruption when pasting a nested plugin under another plugin.
Improve CMSPluginBase.render documentation
Fix CMSEditableObject context generation which generates to errors with django-classy-tags 0.7.1
Fix error in toolbar when LocaleMiddleware is not used
Move templates validation in app.ready
Fix ExtensionToolbar when language is removed but titles still exists
Fix pages menu missing on fresh install 3.1
Fix incorrect language on placeholder text for redirect field
Fix PageSelectWidget JS syntax
Fix redirect when disabling toolbar
Fix CMS_TOOLBAR_HIDE causes ‘WSGIRequest’ object has no attribute ‘toolbar’

Treebeard corruption¶

Prior to 3.1.5 moving or pasting nested plugins would lead to some non-fatal tree corruptions, raising an error when adding plugins under the newly pasted plugins.

To fix these problems, upgrade to 3.1.5 and then run manage.py cms fix-tree command to repair the tree.

DjangoCMS Text CKEditor¶

Action required¶

CMS 3.1.5 is not compatible with djangocms-text-ckeditor < 2.7.1. If you’re using djangocms-text-ckeditor, please upgrade to 2.7.1 or up. Keep in mind that djangocms-text-ckeditor >= 2.8 is compatible only with

3.1.4 release notes - Unreleased - Draft¶

What’s new in 3.1.4¶

Bug Fixes¶

Fixed a problem in 0010_migrate_use_structure.py that broke some migration paths to Django 1.8
Fixed fix_tree command
Removed some warnings for Django 1.9
Fixed issue causing plugins to move when using scroll bar of plugin menu in Firefox & IE
Fixed JavaScript error when using PageSelectWidget
Fixed whitespace markup issues in draft mode
Added plugin migrations layout detection in tests
Fixed some treebeard corruption issues

Treebeard corruption¶

Prior to 3.1.4 deleting pages could lead to some non-fatal tree corruptions, raising an error when publishing, deleting, or moving pages.

To fix these problems, upgrade to 3.1.4 and then run manage.py cms fix-tree command to repair the tree.

3.1.3 release notes¶

What’s new in 3.1.3¶

Bug Fixes¶

Add missing migration
Exclude PageUser manager from migrations
Fix check for template instance in Django 1.8.x
Fix error in PageField for Django 1.8
Fix some Page tree bugs
Declare Django 1.6.9 dependency in setup.py
Make sure cache version returned is an int
Fix issue preventing migrations to run on a new database (django 1.8)
Fix get User model in 0010 migration
Fix support for unpublished language pages
Add documentation for plugins data migration
Fix getting request in _show_placeholder_for_page on Django 1.8
Fix template inheritance order
Fix xframe options inheritance order
Fix placeholder inheritance order
Fix language chooser template
Relax html5lib versions
Fix redirect when deleting a page
Correct South migration error
Correct validation on numeric fields in modal pop-up dialogs
Exclude scssc from manifest
Remove unpublished pages from menu
Remove page from menu items for performance reason
Fix access to pages with expired ancestors
Don’t try to modify an immutable QueryDict
Only attempt to delete cache keys if there are some to be deleted
Update documentation section
Fix language chooser template
Cast to int cache version
Fix extensions copy when using duplicate page/create page type

Thanks¶

Many thanks community members who have submitted issue reports and especially to these GitHub users who have also submitted pull requests: basilelegal, gigaroby, ikudryavtsev, jokerejoker, josjevv, tomwardill.

3.1.2 release notes¶

What’s new in 3.1.2¶

Bug Fixes¶

Fix placeholder cache invalidation under some circumstances
Update translations

3.1.1 release notes¶

What’s new in 3.1.1¶

Add Django 1.8 support
Tutorial updates and improvements
Add copy_site command
Add setting to disable toolbar for anonymous users
Add setting to hide toolbar when a URL is not handled by django CMS
Add editor configuration

Bug Fixes¶

Fixed an issue where privileged users could be tricked into performing actions without their knowledge via a CSRF vulnerability.
Fix issue with causes menu classes to be duplicated in advanced settings
Fix issue with breadcrumbs not showing
Fix issues with show_menu template tags
Fix an error in placeholder cache
Fix get_language_from_request if POST and GET exists
Minor documentation fixes
Revert whitespace clean-up on flash player to fix it
Correctly restore previous status of drag bars
Fix an issue related to “Empty all” Placeholder feature
Fix plugin sorting in Python 3
Fix language-related issues when retrieving page URL
Fix search results number and items alignment in page changelist
Preserve information regarding the current view when applying the CMS decorator
Fix errors with toolbar population
Fix error with watch_models type
Fix error with plugin breadcrumbs order
Change the label “Save and close” to “Save as draft”
Fix X-Frame-Options on top-level pages
Fix order of which application URLs are injected into urlpatterns
Fix delete non existing page language
Fix language fallback for nested plugins
Fix render_model template tag doesn’t show correct change list
Fix Scanning for placeholders fails on include tags with a variable as an argument
Fix handling of plugin position attribute
Fix for some structureboard issues
Pin South version to 1.0.2
Pin html5lib version to 0.999 until a current bug is fixed
Make shift tab work correctly in sub-menu
Fix language chooser template

Potentially backward incompatible changes¶

The order in which the applications are injected is now based on the page depth, if you use nested apphooks, you might want to check that this does not change the behaviour of your applications depending on applications urlconf greediness.

Thanks¶

Many thanks community members who have submitted issue reports and especially to these GitHub users who have also submitted pull requests: astagi, dirtycoder, doctormo, douwevandermeij, driesdesmet, furiousdave, ldgarcia, maqnouch, nikolas, northben, olarcheveque, pa0lin082, peterfarrell, sam-m888, sephii, stefanw, timgraham, vstoykov.

A special thank you to vad and nostalgiaz for their support on Django 1.8 support

A special thank to Matt Wilkes and Sylvain Fankhauser for reporting the security issue.

3.1 release notes¶

django CMS 3.1 has been planned largely as a consolidation release, to build on the progress made in 3.0 and establish a safe, solid base for more ambitious work in the future.

In this release we have tried to maintain maximum backwards-compatibility, particularly for third-party applications, and endeavoured to identify and tidy loose ends in the system wherever possible.

Warning

Upgrading from previous versions

3.1 introduces some changes that require action if you are upgrading from a previous version. Please read Upgrading django CMS 3.0 to 3.1 for a step-by-step guide to the process of upgrading from 3.0 to 3.1.

What’s new in 3.1¶

Switch from MPTT to MP¶

Since django CMS 2.0 we have relied on MPTT (Modified Pre-order Tree Traversal) for efficiently handling tree structures in the database.

In 3.1, Django MPTT has been replaced by django-treebeard, to improve performance and reliability.

Over the years MPTT has proved not to be fast enough for big tree operations (>1000 pages); tree corruption, because of transactional errors, has also been a problem.

django-treebeard uses MP (Materialised Path). MP is more efficient and has more error resistance then MPTT. It should make working with and using django CMS better - faster and reliable.

Other than this, end users should not notice any changes.

Note

User feedback required

We require as much feedback as possible about the performance of django-treebeard in this release. Please let us know your experiences with it, especially if you encounter any problems.

Note

Backward incompatible change

While most of the low-level interface is very similar between django-mptt and django-treebeard they are not exactly the same. If any custom code needs to make use of the low-level interfaces of the page or plugins tree, please see the django-treebeard documentation for information on how to use equivalent calls in django-treebeard.

Note

Handling plugin data migrations

Please refer to the django CMS version 3.1 documentation on plugin data migrations for information on how to create migrations compatible with django CMS 3.0 and 3.1

Action required¶

Run fix-mptt before you upgrade.

Developers who use django CMS will need to run the schema and data migrations that are part of this release. Developers of third-party applications that relied on the Django MPTT that shipped with django CMS are advised to update their own applications so that they install it independently.

Dropped support for Django 1.4 and 1.5¶

Starting from version 3.1, django CMS runs on Django 1.6 (specifically, 1.6.9 and later) and 1.7.

Warning

Django security support

Django 1.6 support is provided as an interim measure only. In accordance with the Django Project’s security policies, 1.6 no longer receives security updates from the Django Project team. Projects running on Django 1.6 have known vulnerabilities, so you are advised to upgrade your installation to 1.7 or 1.8 as soon as possible.

Action required¶

If you’re still on an earlier version, you will need to install a newer one, and make sure that your third-party applications are also up-to-date with it before attempting to upgrade django CMS.

South is now an optional dependency¶

As Django South is now required for Django 1.6 only, it’s marked as an optional dependency.

Action required¶

To install South along with django CMS use pip install django-cms[south].

Changes to PlaceholderAdmin.add_plugin¶

Historically, when a plugin was added to django CMS, a POST request was made to the PlaceholderAdmin.add_plugin endpoint (and going back into very ancient history before PlaceholderAdmin existed, it was PageAdmin.add_plugin). This would create an instance of CMSPlugin, but not an instance of the actual plugin model itself. It would then let the user agent edit the created plugin, which when saved would put the database back in to a consistent state, with a plugin instance connected to the otherwise empty and meaningless CMSPlugin.

In some cases, “ghost plugins” would be created, if the process of creating the plugin instance failed or were interrupted, for example by the broswer window’s being closed.

This would leave orphaned CMSPlugin instances in the database without any data. This could result pages not working at all, due to the resulting database inconsistencies.

This issue has now been solved. Calling CMSPluginBase.add_plugin with a GET request now serves the form for creating a new instance of a plugin. Then on submitting that form via POST, the plugin is created in its entirety, ensuring a consistent database and an end to ghost plugins.

However, to solve it some backwards incompatible changes to non-documented APIs that developers might have used have had to be made.

CMSPluginBase permission hooks¶

Until now, CMSPluginBase.has_delete_permission, CMSPluginBase.has_change_permission and CMSPluginBase.has_add_permission were handled by a single method, which used an undocumented and unreliable property on CMSPluginBase instances (or subclasses thereof) to handle permission management.

In 3.1, CMSPluginBase.has_add_permission is its own method that implements proper permission checking for adding plugins.

If you want to work with those APIs, see the Django documentation for more on the permission methods.

CMSPluginBase.get_form¶

Prior to 3.1, this method would only ever be called with an actual instance available.

As of 3.1, this method will be called without an instance (the obj argument to the method will be None) if the form is used to add a plugin, rather than editing it. Again, this is in line with how Django’s ModelAdmin works.

If you need access to the Placeholder object to which the plugin will be added, the request object is guaranteed to have a placeholder_id key in request.GET, which is the primary key of the Placeholder object to which the plugin will be added. Similarly, plugin_language in request.GET holds the language code of the plugin to be added.

CMSPlugin.add_view¶

This method used to never be called, but as of 3.1 it will be. Should you need to hook into this method, you may want to use the CMSPluginBase.add_view_check_request method to verify that a request made to this view is valid. This method will perform integrity and permission checks for the GET parameters of the request.

Migrations moved¶

Migrations directories have been renamed to conform to the new standard layout:

Django 1.7 migrations: in the default cms/migrations and menus/migrations directories

South migrations: in the cms/south_migrations and menus/south_migrations directories

Action required¶

South 1.0.2 or newer is required to handle the new layout correctly, so make sure you have that installed.

If you are upgrading from django CMS 3.0.x running on Django 1.7 you need to remove the old migration path from MIGRATION_MODULES settings.

Plugins migrations moving process¶

Core plugins are being changed to follow the new convention for the migration modules, starting with djangocms_text_ckeditor 2.5 released together with django CMS 3.1.

Action required¶

Check the readme file of each plugin when upgrading to know the actions required.

Structure mode permission¶

A new Can use Structure mode* permission has been added.

Without this permission, a non-superuser will no longer have access to structure mode. This makes possible a more strict workflow, in which certain users are able to edit content but not structure.

This change includes a data migration that adds the new permission to any staff user or group with cms.change_page permission.

Action required¶

You may need to adjust these permissions once you have completed migrating your database.

Note that if you have existing users in your database, but are installing django CMS and running its migrations for the first time, you will need to grant them these permissions - they will not acquire them automatically.

Per-namespace apphook configuration¶

django CMS provides a new API to define namespaced Apphook configurations.

Aldryn Apphooks Config has been created and released as a standard implementation to take advantage of this, but other implementations can be developed.

Placeholder language fallback default to True¶

language_fallback in CMS_PLACEHOLDER_CONF is True by default.

New template tags¶

render_model_add_block¶

The family of render_model template tags that allow Django developers to make any Django model editable in the frontend has been extended with render_model_add_block, which can offer arbitrary markup as the Edit icon (rather than just an image as previously).

render_plugin_block¶

Some user interfaces have some plugins hidden from display in edit/preview mode. render_plugin_block provides a way to expose them for editing, and also more generally provides an alternative means of triggering a plugin’s change form.

Plugin table naming¶

Old-style plugin table names (for example, cmsplugin_<plugin name> are no longer supported. Relevant code has been removed.

Action required¶

Any plugin table name must be migrated to the standard (<application name>_<table name> layout.

`cms.context_processors.media` replaced by `cms.context_processors.cms_settings`¶

Action required¶

Replace the cms.context_processors.media with cms.context_processors.cms_settings in settings.py.

Upgrading django CMS 3.0 to 3.1¶

Preliminary steps¶

Before upgrading, please make sure that your current database is consistent and in a healthy state.

To ensure this, run two commands:

python manage.py cms delete_orphaned_plugins
python manage.py cms fix-mptt

Make a copy of the database before proceeding further.

Settings update¶

Change cms.context_processors.media to cms.context_processors.cms_settings in TEMPLATE_CONTEXT_PROCESSORS.
Add treebeard to INSTALLED_APPS, and remove mptt if not required by other applications.
If using Django 1.7 remove cms and menus from MIGRATION_MODULES to support the new migration layout.
If migrating from Django 1.6 and below to Django 1.7, remove south from installed_apps.
Eventually set language_fallback to False in CMS_PLACEHOLDER_CONF if you do not want language fallback behaviour for placeholders.

Update the database¶

Rename plugin table names, to conform to the new naming scheme (see above). Be warned that not all third-party plugin applications may provide these migrations - in this case you will need to rename the table manually. Following the upgrade, django CMS will look for the tables for these plugins under their new name, and will report that they don’t exist if it can’t find them.
The migration for MPTT to django-treebeard is handled by the django CMS migrations, thus apply migrations to update your database:
```
python manage.py migrate
```

3.0.16 release notes¶

Bug-fixes¶

Fixed JavaScript error when using PageSelectWidget
Fixed whitespace markup issues in draft mode
Added plugin migrations layout detection in tests

3.0.15 release notes¶

What’s new in 3.0.15¶

Bug Fixes¶

Relax html5lib versions
Fix redirect when deleting a page
Correct South migration error
Correct validation on numeric fields in modal pop-up dialogs
Exclude scssc from manifest
Remove unpublished pages from menu
Remove page from menu items for performance reason
Fix access to pages with expired ancestors
Don’t try to modify an immutable QueryDict
Only attempt to delete cache keys if there are some to be deleted
Update documentation section
Fix language chooser template
Cast to int cache version
Fix extensions copy when using duplicate page/create page type

Thanks¶

Many thanks community members who have submitted issue reports and especially to these GitHub users who have also submitted pull requests: basilelegal.

3.0.14 release notes¶

What’s new in 3.0.14¶

Bug Fixes¶

Fixed an issue where privileged users could be tricked into performing actions without their knowledge via a CSRF vulnerability.
Fix issue with causes menu classes to be duplicated in advanced settings
Fix issue with breadcrumbs not showing
Fix issues with show_menu template tags
Minor documentation fixes
Fix an issue related to “Empty all” Placeholder feature
Fix plugin sorting in Python 3
Fix search results number and items alignment in page changelist
Preserve information regarding the current view when applying the CMS decorator
Fix X-Frame-Options on top-level pages
Fix order of which application URLs are injected into urlpatterns
Fix delete non existing page language
Fix language fallback for nested plugins
Fix render_model template tag doesn’t show correct change list
Fix Scanning for placeholders fails on include tags with a variable as an argument
Pin South version to 1.0.2
Pin html5lib version to 0.999 until a current bug is fixed
Fix language chooser template

Potentially backward incompatible changes¶

The order in which the applications are injected is now based on the page depth, if you use nested apphooks, you might want to check that this does not change the behaviour of your applications depending on applications urlconf greediness.

Thanks¶

Many thanks community members who have submitted issue reports and especially to these GitHub users who have also submitted pull requests: douwevandermeij, furiousdave, nikolas, olarcheveque, sephii, vstoykov.

A special thank to Matt Wilkes and Sylvain Fankhauser for reporting the security issue.

3.0.13 release notes¶

What’s new in 3.0.13¶

Bug Fixes¶

Numerous documentation including installation and tutorial updates
Numerous improvements to translations
Improves reliability of apphooks
Improves reliability of Advanced Settings on page when using apphooks
Allow page deletion after template removal
Improves upstream caching accuracy
Improves CMSAttachMenu registration
Improves handling of mis-typed URLs
Improves redirection as a result of changes to page slugs, etc.
Improves performance of “watched models”
Improves frontend performance relating to re-sizing the sideframe
Corrects an issue where items might not be visible in structure mode menus
Limits version of django-mptt used in CMS for 3.0.x
Prevent accidental upgrades to Django 1.8, which is not yet supported

Many thanks community members who have submitted issue reports and especially to these GitHub users who have also submitted pull requests: elpaso, jedie, jrief, jsma, treavis.

3.0.12 release notes¶

What’s new in 3.0.12¶

Bug Fixes¶

Fixes a regression caused by extra whitespace in JavaScript

3.0.11 release notes¶

What’s new in 3.0.11¶

Core support for multiple instances of the same apphooked application
The template tag render_model_add can now accept a model class as well as a model instance

Bug Fixes¶

Fixes an issue with reverting to Live mode when moving plugins
Fixes a missing migration issue
Fixes an issue when using the PageField widget
Fixes an issue where duplicate page slugs is not prevented in some cases
Fixes an issue where copying a page didn’t copy its extensions
Fixes an issue where translations where broken when operating on a page
Fixes an edge-case SQLite issue under Django 1.7
Fixes an issue where a confirmation dialog shows only some of the plugins to be deleted when using the “Empty All” context-menu item
Fixes an issue where deprecated mimetype was used instead of contenttype
Fixes an issue where cms check erroneous displays warnings when a plugin uses class inheritance
Documentation updates

Other¶

Updated test CI coverage

3.0.10 release notes¶

What’s new in 3.0.10¶

Improved Python 3 compatibility
Improved the behaviour when changing the operator’s language
Numerous documentation updates

Bug Fixes¶

Revert a change that caused an issue with saving plugins in some browsers
Fix an issue where URLs were not refreshed when a page slug changes
Fix an issue with FR translations
Fixed an issue preventing the correct rendering of custom contextual menu items for plugins
Fixed an issue relating to recovering deleted pages
Fixed an issue that caused the uncached placeholder tag to display cached content
Fixed an issue where extra slashed would appear in apphooked URLs when APPEND_SLASH=False
Fixed issues relating to the logout function

3.0.9 release notes¶

What’s new in 3.0.9¶

Bug Fixes¶

Revert a change that caused a regression in toolbar login
Fix an error in a translated phrase
Fix error when moving items in the page tree

3.0.8 release notes¶

What’s new in 3.0.8¶

Add require_parent option to CMS_PLACEHOLDER_CONF

Bug Fixes¶

Fix django-mptt version dependency to be PEP440 compatible
Fix some Django 1.4 compatibility issues
Add toolbar sanity check
Fix behaviour with CMSPluginBase.get_render_template()
Fix issue on django >= 1.6 with page form fields.
Resolve jQuery namespace issues in admin page tree and change form
Fix issues for PageField in Firefox/Safari
Fix some Python 3.4 compatibility issue when using proxy modules
Fix corner case in plugin copy
Documentation fixes
Minor code clean-ups

Warning

Fix for plugin copy patches a reference leak in cms.models.CMSPlugin.copy_plugins, which caused the original plugin object to be modified in memory. The fixed code leaves the original unaltered and returns a modified copy.

Custom plugins that called cms.utils.plugins.copy_plugins_to or cms.models.CMSPlugin.copy_plugins may have relied on the incorrect behaviour. Check your code for calls to these methods. Correctly implemented calls should expect the original plugin instance to remain unaltered.

3.0.7 release notes¶

What’s new in 3.0.7¶

Numerous updates to the documentation
Numerous updates to the tutorial
Updates to better support South 1.0
Adds some new, user-facing documentation

Bug Fixes¶

Fixes an issue with placeholderadmin permissions
Numerous fixes for minor issues with the frontend UI
Fixes issue where the CMS would not reload pages properly if the URL contained a # symbol
Fixes an issue relating to limit_choices_to in forms.MultiValueFields
Fixes PageField to work in Django 1.7 environments

Project & Community Governance¶

Updates to community and project governance documentation
Added list of retired core developers
Added branch policy documentation

3.0.6 release notes¶

What’s new in 3.0.6¶

Django 1.7 support¶

As of version 3.0.6 django CMS supports Django 1.7.

Currently our migrations for Django 1.7 are in cms/migrations_django to allow better backward compatibility; in future releases the Django migrations will be moved to the standard migrations directory, with the South migrations in south_migrations.

To support the current arrangement you need to add the following to your settings:

MIGRATION_MODULES = {
    'cms': 'cms.migrations_django',
    'menus': 'menus.migrations_django',
}

Warning

Applications migrations

Any application that defines a django CMS plugin or a model that uses a PlaceholderField or depends in any way on django CMS models must also provide Django 1.7 migrations.

Extended Custom User Support¶

If you are using custom user models and use CMS_PERMISSION = True then be sure to check that PageUserAdmin and PageUserGroup is still in working order.

The PageUserAdmin class now extends dynamically from the admin class that handles the user model. This allows us to use the same search_fields and filters in PageUserAdmin as in the custom user model admin.

`CMSPlugin.get_render_template`¶

A new method on plugins, that returns the template during the render phase, allowing you to change the template based on any plugin attribute or context status. See Custom Plugins for more.

3.0.3 release notes¶

What’s new in 3.0.3¶

New Alias Plugin¶

A new Alias plugin has been added. You will find in your plugins and placeholders context menu in structure mode a new entry called “Create alias”. This will create a new Alias plugin in the clipboard with a reference to the original. It will render this original plugin/placeholder instead. This is useful for content that is present in more then one place.

Apphook Permissions¶

Apphooks have now by default the same permissions as the page they are attached to. This means if a page has for example a login required enabled all views in the apphook will have the same behaviour.

Docs on how to disable or customise this behaviour have a look here:

Apphook permissions

3.0 release notes¶

What’s new in 3.0¶

Warning

Upgrading from previous versions

3.0 introduces some changes that require action if you are upgrading from a previous version.

Note

See the quick upgrade guide

New Frontend Editing¶

django CMS 3.0 introduces a new frontend editing system as well as a customisable Django admin skin (djangocms_admin_style).

In the new system, Placeholders and their plugins are no longer managed in the admin site, but only from the frontend.

In addition, the system now offer two editing views:

content view, for editing the configuration and content of plugins.
structure view, in which plugins can be added and rearranged.

Page titles can also be modified directly from the frontend.

New Page Types¶

You can now save pages as page types. If you then create a new page you may select a page type and all plugins and contents will be pre-filled.

Experimental Python 3.3 support¶

We’ve added experimental support for Python 3.3. Support for Python 2.5 has been dropped.

Better multilingual editing¶

Improvements in the django CMS environment for managing a multi-lingual site include:

a built-in language chooser for languages that are not yet public.
configurable behaviour of the admin site’s language when switching between languages of edited content.

CMS_SEO_FIELDS¶

The setting has been removed, along with the SEO fieldset in admin.

meta_description field’s max_length is now 155 for optimal Google integration.
page_title is default on top.
meta_keywords field has been removed, as it no longer serves any purpose.

Plugin fallback languages¶

It’s now possible to specify fallback languages for a placeholder if the placeholder is empty for the current language. This must be activated in CMS_PLACEHOLDER_CONF per placeholder. It defaults to False to maintain pre-3.0 behaviour.

language_chooser¶

The language_chooser template tag now only displays languages that are public. Use the toolbar language chooser to change the language to non-public languages.

Undo and Redo¶

If you have django-reversion installed you now have undo and redo options available directly in the toolbar. These can now revert plugin content as well as page content.

Plugins removed¶

We have removed plugins from the core. This is not because you are not expected to use them, but because django CMS should not impose unnecessary choices about what to install upon its adopters.

The most significant of these removals is cms.plugins.text.

We provide djangocms-text-ckeditor, a CKEditor-based Text Plugin. It’s available from https://github.com/divio/djangocms-text-ckeditor. You may of course use your preferred editor; others are available.

Furthermore, we removed the following plugins from the core and moved them into separate repositories.

Note

In order to update from the old cms.plugins.X to the new djangocms_X plugins, simply install the new plugin, remove the old cms.plugins.X from settings.INSTALLED_APPS and add the new one to it. Then run the migrations (python manage.py migrate djangocms_X).

File Plugin¶

We removed the file plugin (cms.plugins.file). Its new location is at:

https://github.com/divio/djangocms-file

As an alternative, you could also use the following (yet you will not be able to keep your existing files from the old cms.plugins.file!)

https://github.com/stefanfoulis/django-filer

Flash Plugin¶

We removed the flash plugin (cms.plugins.flash). Its new location is at:

https://github.com/divio/djangocms-flash

Googlemap Plugin¶

We removed the Googlemap plugin (cms.plugins.googlemap). Its new location is at:

https://github.com/divio/djangocms-googlemap

Inherit Plugin¶

We removed the inherit plugin (cms.plugins.inherit). Its new location is at:

https://github.com/divio/djangocms-inherit

Picture Plugin¶

We removed the picture plugin (cms.plugins.picture). Its new location is at:

https://github.com/divio/djangocms-picture

Teaser Plugin¶

We removed the teaser plugin (cms.plugins.teaser). Its new location is at:

https://github.com/divio/djangocms-teaser

Video Plugin¶

We removed the video plugin (cms.plugins.video). Its new location is at:

https://github.com/divio/djangocms-video

Link Plugin¶

We removed the link plugin (cms.plugins.link). Its new location is at:

https://github.com/divio/djangocms-link

Snippet Plugin¶

We removed the snippet plugin (cms.plugins.snippet). Its new location is at:

https://github.com/divio/djangocms-snippet

As an alternative, you could also use the following (yet you will not be able to keep your existing files from the old cms.plugins.snippet!)

https://github.com/pbs/django-cms-smartsnippets

Twitter Plugin¶

Twitter disabled V1 of their API, thus we’ve removed the twitter plugin (cms.plugins.twitter) completely.

For alternatives have a look at these plugins:

Plugin Context Processors take a new argument¶

Plugin Context have had an argument added so that the rest of the context is available to them. If you have existing plugin context processors you will need to change their function signature to add the extra argument.

Apphooks¶

Apphooks have moved from the title to the page model. This means you can no longer have separate apphooks for each language. A new application instance name field has been added.

Note

The reverse id is not used for the namespace any more. If you used namespaced apphooks before, be sure to update your pages and fill out the namespace fields.

If you use apphook apps with app_name for app namespaces, be sure to fill out the instance namespace field application instance name as it’s now required to have a namespace defined if you use app namespaces.

For further reading about application namespaces, please refer to the Django documentation on the subject at https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/topics/http/urls/#url-namespaces

request.current_app has been removed. If you relied on this, use the following code instead in your views:

def my_view(request):
  current_app = resolve(request.path_info).namespace
  context = RequestContext(request, current_app=current_app)
  return render_to_response("my_templace.html", context_instance=context)

Details can be found in Attaching an application multiple times.

`PlaceholderAdmin`¶

PlaceholderAdmin now is deprecated. Instead of deriving from admin.ModelAdmin, a new mixin class PlaceholderAdminMixin has been introduced which shall be used together with admin.ModelAdmin. Therefore when defining a model admin class containing a placeholder, now add PlaceholderAdminMixin to the list of parent classes, together with admin.ModelAdmin.

PlaceholderAdmin doesn’t have language tabs any more and the plugin editor is gone. The plugin API has changed and is now more consistent. PageAdmin uses the same API as PlaceholderAdminMixin now. If your app talked with the Plugin API directly be sure to read the code and the changed parameters. If you use PlaceholderFields you should add the mixin PlaceholderAdminMixin as it delivers the API for editing the plugins and the placeholders.

The workflow in the future should look like this:

Create new model instances via a toolbar entry or via the admin.
Go to the view that represents the model instance and add content via frontend editing.

Placeholder object permissions¶

In addition to model level permissions, Placeholder now checks if a user has permissions on a specific object of that model. Details can be found here in Permissions.

Placeholders are pre-fillable with default plugins¶

In CMS_PLACEHOLDER_CONF, for each placeholder configuration, you can specify via ‘default_plugins’ a list of plugins to automatically add to the placeholder if empty. See default_plugins in CMS_PLACEHOLDER_CONF.

New `copy-lang` subcommand¶

Added a management command to copy content (titles and plugins) from one language to another.

The command can be run with:

manage.py cms copy_lang from_lang to_lang

Please read cms copy lang before using.

Frontend editor for Django models¶

Frontend editor is available for any Django model; see documentation for details.

Moved all template tags to `cms_tags`¶

All template tags are now in the cms_tags namespace so to use any cms template tags you can just do:

{% load cms_tags %}

`getter` and `setter` for translatable plugin content¶

A plugin’s translatable content can now be read and set through get_translatable_content() and set_translatable_content(). See Custom Plugins for more info.

No more DB table-name magic for plugins¶

Since django CMS 2.0 plugins had their table names start with cmsplugin_. We removed this behaviour in 3.0 and will display a deprecation warning with the old and new table name. If your plugin uses south for migrations create a new empty schema migration and rename the table by hand.

Warning

When working in the django shell or coding at low level, you must trigger the backward compatible behaviour (a.k.a. magical rename checking), otherwise non migrated plugins will fail. To do this execute the following code:

>>> from cms.plugin_pool import plugin_pool
>>> plugin_pool.set_plugin_meta()

This code can be executed both in the shell or in your python modules.

Added support for custom user models¶

Since Django 1.5 it has been possible to swap out the default User model for a custom user model. This is now fully supported by DjangoCMS, and in addition a new option has been added to the test runner to allow specifying the user model to use for tests (e.g. --user=customuserapp.User)

Page caching¶

Pages are now cached by default. You can disable this behaviour with CMS_PAGE_CACHE

Placeholder caching¶

Plugins have a new default property: cache=True. If all plugins in a placeholder have set this to True the whole placeholder will be cached if the toolbar is not in edit mode.

Warning

If your plugin is dynamic and processes current user or request data be sure to set cache=False

Plugin caching¶

Plugins have a new attribute: cache=True. Its default value can be configured with CMS_PLUGIN_CACHE.

Per-page Clickjacking protection¶

An advanced option has been added which controls, on a per-page basis, the X-Frame-Options header. The default setting is to inherit from the parent page. If no ancestor specifies a value, no header will be set, allowing Django’s own middleware to handle it (if enabled).

CMS_TEMPLATE context variable¶

A new CMS_TEMPLATE variable is now available in the context: it contains the path to the current page template. See CMS_TEMPLATE reference for details.

Upgrading from 2.4¶

Note

There are reports that upgrading the CMS from 2.4 to 3.0 may fail if Django Debug Toolbar is installed. Please remove/disable Django Debug Toolbar and other non-essential apps before attempting to upgrade, then once complete, re-enable them following the “Explicit setup” instructions.

If you want to upgrade from version 2.4 to 3.0, there’s a few things you need to do. Start of by updating the cms’ package:

pip install django-cms==3.0

Next, you need to make the following changes in your settings.py

settings.INSTALLED_APPS
- Remove cms.plugin.twitter. This package has been deprecated, see Twitter Plugin.
- Rename all the other cms.plugins.X to djangocms_X, see Plugins removed.
settings.CONTEXT_PROCESSORS
- Replace cms.context_processors.media with cms.context_processors.cms_settings

Afterwards, install all your previously renamed ex-core plugins (djangocms-whatever). Here’s a full list, but you probably don’t need all of them:

pip install djangocms-file
pip install djangocms-flash
pip install djangocms-googlemap
pip install djangocms-inherit
pip install djangocms-picture
pip install djangocms-teaser
pip install djangocms-video
pip install djangocms-link
pip install djangocms-snippet

Also, please check your templates to make sure that you haven’t put the {% cms_toolbar %} tag into a {% block %} tag. This is not allowed in 3.0 any more.

To finish up, please update your database:

python manage.py syncdb
python manage.py migrate  (answer yes if your prompted to delete stale content types)

Finally, your existing pages will be unpublished, so publish them with the publisher command:

python manage.py publisher_publish

That’s it!

Pending deprecations¶

placeholder_tags¶

placeholder_tags is now deprecated, the render_placeholder template tag can now be loaded from the cms_tags template tag library.

Using placeholder_tags will cause a DeprecationWarning to occur.

placeholder_tags will be removed in version 3.1.

cms.context_processors.media¶

cms.context_processors.media is now deprecated, please use cms.context_processors.cms_settings by updating TEMPLATE_CONTEXT_PROCESSORS in the settings

Using cms.context_processors.media will cause a DeprecationWarning to occur.

cms.context_processors.media will be removed in version 3.1.

2.4 release notes¶

What’s new in 2.4¶

Warning

Upgrading from previous versions

2.4 introduces some changes that require action if you are upgrading from a previous version.

You will need to read the sections Migrations overhaul and Added a check command below.

Introducing Django 1.5 support, dropped support for Django 1.3 and Python 2.5¶

Django CMS 2.4 introduces Django 1.5 support.

In django CMS 2.4 we dropped support for Django 1.3 and Python 2.5. Django 1.4 and Python 2.6 are now the minimum required versions.

Migrations overhaul¶

In version 2.4, migrations have been completely rewritten to address issues with newer South releases.

To ease the upgrading process, all the migrations for the cms application have been consolidated into a single migration file, 0001_initial.py.

migration 0001 is a real migration, that gets you to the same point migrations 0001-0036 used to
the migrations 0002 to 0036 inclusive still exist, but are now all dummy migrations
migrations 0037 and later are new migrations

How this affects you¶

If you’re starting with a new installation, you don’t need to worry about this. Don’t even bother reading this section; it’s for upgraders.

If you’re using version 2.3.2 or newer, you don’t need to worry about this either.

If you’re using version 2.3.1 or older, you will need to run a two-step process.

First, you’ll need to upgrade to 2.3.3, to bring your migration history up-to-date with the new scheme. Then you’ll need to perform the migrations for 2.4.

For the two-step upgrade process do the following in your project main directory:

pip install django-cms==2.3.3
python manage.py syncdb
python manage.py migrate
pip install django-cms==2.4
python manage.py migrate

Added delete orphaned plugins command¶

Added a management command for deleting orphaned plugins from the database.

The command can be run with:

manage.py cms delete_orphaned_plugins

Please read cms delete-orphaned-plugins before using.

Added a check command¶

Added a management command to check your configuration and environment.

To use this command, simply run:

manage.py cms check

This replaces the old at-runtime checks.

CMS_MODERATOR¶

Has been removed since it is no longer in use. From 2.4 onward, all pages exist in a public and draft version. Users with the publish_page permission can publish changes to the public site.

Management command required

To bring a previous version of your site’s database up-to-date, you’ll need to run manage.py cms moderator on. Never run this command without first checking for orphaned plugins, using the cms list plugins command. If it reports problems, run manage.py cms delete_orphaned_plugins. Running cms moderator with orphaned plugins will fail and leave bad data in your database. See cms list and cms delete-orphaned-plugins.

Also, check that all your plugins define a copy_relations() method if required. You can do this by running manage.py cms check and read the Presence of “copy_relations” section. See Handling Relations for guidance on this topic.

Added Fix MPTT Management command¶

Added a management command for fixing MPTT tree data.

The command can be run with:

manage.py cms fix-mptt

Removed the MultilingualMiddleware¶

We removed the MultilingualMiddleware. This removed rather some unattractive monkey-patching of the reverse() function as well. As a benefit we now support localisation of URLs and apphook URLs with standard Django helpers.

For django 1.4 more information can be found here:

https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/topics/i18n/translation/#internationalization-in-url-patterns

If you are still running django 1.3 you are able to achieve the same functionality with django-i18nurl. It is a backport of the new functionality in django 1.4 and can be found here:

https://github.com/brocaar/django-i18nurls

What you need to do:

Remove cms.middleware.multilingual.MultilingualURLMiddleware from your settings.
Be sure django.middleware.locale.LocaleMiddleware is in your settings, and that it comes after the SessionMiddleware.

Be sure that the cms.urls is included in a i18n_patterns:

from django.conf.urls import *
from django.conf.urls.i18n import i18n_patterns
from django.contrib import admin
from django.conf import settings

admin.autodiscover()

urlpatterns = i18n_patterns('',
    url(r'^admin/', include(admin.site.urls)),
    url(r'^', include('cms.urls')),
)

if settings.DEBUG:
    urlpatterns = patterns('',
    url(r'^media/(?P<path>.*)$', 'django.views.static.serve',
        {'document_root': settings.MEDIA_ROOT, 'show_indexes': True}),
    url(r'', include('django.contrib.staticfiles.urls')),
) + urlpatterns

Change your url and reverse calls to language namespaces. We now support the django way of calling other language urls either via {% language %} template tag or via activate("de") function call in views.

Before:
```
{% url "de:myview" %}
```
After:
```
{% load i18n %}{% language "de" %}
{% url "myview_name" %}
{% endlanguage %}
```
reverse urls now return the language prefix as well. So maybe there is some code that adds language prefixes. Remove this code.

Added LanguageCookieMiddleware¶

To fix the behaviour of django to determine the language every time from new, when you visit / on a page, this middleware saves the current language in a cookie with every response.

To enable this middleware add the following to your MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES setting:

cms.middleware.language.LanguageCookieMiddleware

CMS_LANGUAGES¶

CMS_LANGUAGES has be overhauled. It is no longer a list of tuples like the LANGUAGES settings.

An example explains more than thousand words:

CMS_LANGUAGES = {
        1: [
            {
                'code': 'en',
                'name': gettext('English'),
                'fallbacks': ['de', 'fr'],
                'public': True,
                'hide_untranslated': True,
                'redirect_on_fallback':False,
            },
            {
                'code': 'de',
                'name': gettext('Deutsch'),
                'fallbacks': ['en', 'fr'],
                'public': True,
            },
            {
                'code': 'fr',
                'name': gettext('French'),
                'public': False,
            },
        ],
        2: [
            {
                'code': 'nl',
                'name': gettext('Dutch'),
                'public': True,
                'fallbacks': ['en'],
            },
        ],
        'default': {
            'fallbacks': ['en', 'de', 'fr'],
            'redirect_on_fallback':True,
            'public': False,
            'hide_untranslated': False,
        }
    }

For more details on what all the parameters mean please refer to the CMS_LANGUAGES docs.

The following settings are not needed any more and have been removed:

CMS_HIDE_UNTRANSLATED
CMS_LANGUAGE_FALLBACK
CMS_LANGUAGE_CONF
CMS_SITE_LANGUAGES
CMS_FRONTEND_LANGUAGES

Please remove them from your settings.py.

CMS_FLAT_URLS¶

Was marked deprecated in 2.3 and has now been removed.

Plugins in Plugins¶

We added the ability to have plugins in plugins. Until now only the TextPlugin supported this. For demonstration purposes we created a MultiColumn Plugin. The possibilities for this are endless. Imagine: StylePlugin, TablePlugin, GalleryPlugin etc.

The column plugin can be found here:

https://github.com/divio/djangocms-column

At the moment the limitation is that plugins in plugins is only editable in the frontend.

Here is the MultiColumn Plugin as an example:

class MultiColumnPlugin(CMSPluginBase):
    model = MultiColumns
    name = _("Multi Columns")
    render_template = "cms/plugins/multi_column.html"
    allow_children = True
    child_classes = ["ColumnPlugin"]

There are 2 new properties for plugins:

allow_children

Boolean If set to True it allows adding Plugins.

child_classes

List A List of Plugin Classes that can be added to this plugin. If not provided you can add all plugins that are available in this placeholder.

How to render your child plugins in the template¶

We introduce a new template tag in the cms_tags called {% render_plugin %} Here is an example of how the MultiColumn plugin uses it:

{% load cms_tags %}
<div class="multicolumn">
{% for plugin in instance.child_plugins %}
    {% render_plugin plugin %}
{% endfor %}
</div>

As you can see the children are accessible via the plugins children attribute.

New way to handle django CMS settings¶

If you have code that needs to access django CMS settings (settings prefixed with CMS_ or PLACEHOLDER_) you would have used for example from django.conf import settings; settings.CMS_TEMPLATES. This will no longer guarantee to return sane values, instead you should use cms.utils.conf.get_cms_setting which takes the name of the setting without the CMS_ prefix as argument and returns the setting.

Example of old, now deprecated style:

from django.conf import settings

settings.CMS_TEMPLATES
settings.PLACEHOLDER_FRONTEND_EDITING

Should be replaced with the new API:

from cms.utils.conf import get_cms_setting

get_cms_setting('TEMPLATES')
get_cms_setting('PLACEHOLDER_FRONTEND_EDITING')

Added `cms.constants` module¶

This release adds the cms.constants module which will hold generic django CMS constant values. Currently it only contains TEMPLATE_INHERITANCE_MAGIC which used to live in cms.conf.global_settings but was moved to the new cms.constants module in the settings overhaul mentioned above.

django-reversion integration changes¶

django-reversion integration has changed. Because of huge databases after some time we introduce some changes to the way revisions are handled for pages.

Only publish revisions are saved. All other revisions are deleted when you publish a page.

By default only the latest 25 publish revisions are kept. You can change this behaviour with the new CMS_MAX_PAGE_PUBLISH_REVERSIONS setting.

Changes to the show_sub_menu template tag¶

The show_sub_menu has received two new parameters. The first stays the same and is still: how many levels of menu should be displayed.

The second: root_level (default=None), specifies at what level, if any, the menu should root at. For example, if root_level is 0 the menu will start at that level regardless of what level the current page is on.

The third argument: nephews (default=100), specifies how many levels of nephews (children of siblings) are shown.

PlaceholderAdmin support i18n¶

If you use placeholders in other apps or models we now support more than one language out of the box. If you just use PlaceholderAdmin it will display language tabs like the cms. If you use django-hvad it uses the hvad language tabs.

If you want to disable this behaviour you can set render_placeholder_language_tabs = False on your Admin class that extends PlaceholderAdmin. If you use a custom change_form_template be sure to have a look at cms/templates/admin/placeholders/placeholder/change_form.html for how to incorporate language tabs.

Added CMS_RAW_ID_USERS¶

If you have a lot of users (500+) you can set this setting to a number after which admin User fields are displayed in a raw Id field. This improves performance a lot in the admin as it has not to load all the users into the html.

Backwards incompatible changes¶

New minimum requirements for dependencies¶

Django 1.3 and Python 2.5 are no longer supported.

Pending deprecations¶

simple_language_changer will be removed in version 3.0. A bug-fix makes this redundant as every non-managed URL will behave like this.

2.3.4 release notes¶

What’s new in 2.3.4¶

WymEditor fixed¶

2.3.4 fixes a critical issue with WymEditor that prevented it from load it’s JavaScript assets correctly.

Moved Norwegian translations¶

The Norwegian translations are now available as nb, which is the new (since 2003) official language code for Norwegian, replacing the older and deprecated no code.

If your site runs in Norwegian, you need to change your LANGUAGES settings!

Added support for time zones¶

On Django 1.4, and with USE_TZ=True the django CMS now uses time zone aware date and time objects.

Fixed slug clashing¶

In earlier versions, publishing a page that has the same slug (URL) as another (published) page could lead to errors. Now, when a page which would have the same URL as another (published) page is published, the user is shown an error and they’re prompted to change the slug for the page.

Two fixes to page change form¶

The change form for pages would throw errors if the user editing the page does not have the permission to publish this page. This issue was resolved.

Further the page change form would not correctly pre-populate the slug field if DEBUG was set to False. Again, this issue is now resolved.

2.3.3 release notes¶

What’s new in 2.3.3¶

Restored Python 2.5 support¶

2.3.3 restores Python 2.5 support for the django CMS.

Pending deprecations¶

Python 2.5 support will be dropped in django CMS 2.4.

2.3.2 release notes¶

What’s new in 2.3.2¶

Google map plugin¶

Google map plugin now supports width and height fields so that plugin size can be modified in the page admin or frontend editor.

Zoom level is now set via a select field which ensure only legal values are used.

Warning

Due to the above change, level field is now marked as NOT NULL, and a data migration has been introduced to modify existing Googlemap plugin instance to set the default value if level if is NULL.

2.3 release notes¶

What’s new in 2.3¶

Introducing Django 1.4 support, dropped support for Django 1.2¶

In django CMS 2.3 we dropped support for Django 1.2. Django 1.3.1 is now the minimum required Django version. Django CMS 2.3 also introduces Django 1.4 support.

Lazy page tree loading in admin¶

Thanks to the work by Andrew Schoen the page tree in the admin now loads lazily, significantly improving the performance of that view for large sites.

Plugin cancel button fixed¶

The cancel button in plugin change forms no longer saves the changes, but actually cancels.

Tests refactor¶

Tests can now be run using setup.py test or runtests.py (the latter should be done in a virtualenv with the proper dependencies installed).

Check runtests.py -h for options.

Moving text plugins to different placeholders no longer loses inline plugins¶

A serious bug where a text plugin with inline plugins would lose all the inline plugins when moved to a different placeholder has been fixed.

Minor improvements¶

The or clause in the placeholder tag now works correctly on non-cms pages.
The icon source URL for inline plugins for text plugins no longer gets double escaped.
PageSelectWidget correctly orders pages again.
Fixed the file plugin which was sometimes causing invalid HTML (unclosed span tag).
Migration ordering for plugins improved.
Internationalised strings in JavaScript now get escaped.

Backwards incompatible changes¶

New minimum requirements for dependencies¶

django-reversion must now be at version 1.6
django-sekizai must be at least at version 0.6.1
django-mptt version 0.5.1 or 0.5.2 is required

Registering a list of plugins in the plugin pool¶

This feature was deprecated in version 2.2 and removed in 2.3. Code like this will not work any more:

plugin_pool.register_plugin([FooPlugin, BarPlugin])

Instead, use multiple calls to register_plugin:

plugin_pool.register_plugin(FooPlugin)
plugin_pool.register_plugin(BarPlugin)

Pending deprecations¶

The CMS_FLAT_URLS setting is deprecated and will be removed in version 2.4. The moderation feature (CMS_MODERATOR = True) will be deprecated in 2.4 and replaced with a simpler way of handling unpublished changes.

2.2 release notes¶

What’s new in 2.2¶

`django-mptt` now a proper dependency¶

django-mptt is now used as a proper dependency and is no longer shipped with the django CMS. This solves the version conflict issues many people were experiencing when trying to use the django CMS together with other Django apps that require django-mptt. django CMS 2.2 requires django-mptt 0.5.1.

Warning

Please remove the old mptt package from your Python site-packages directory before upgrading. The setup.py file will install the django-mptt package as an external dependency!

Django 1.3 support¶

The django CMS 2.2 supports both Django 1.2.5 and Django 1.3.

View permissions¶

You can now give view permissions for django CMS pages to groups and users.

Backwards incompatible changes¶

`django-sekizai` instead of PluginMedia¶

Due to the sorry state of the old plugin media framework, it has been dropped in favour of the more stable and more flexible django-sekizai, which is a new dependency for the django CMS 2.2.

The following methods and properties of cms.plugin_base.CMSPluginBase are affected:

cms.plugins_base.CMSPluginBase.PluginMedia
cms.plugins_base.CMSPluginBase.pluginmedia
cms.plugins_base.CMSPluginBase.get_plugin_media

Accessing those attributes or methods will raise a cms.exceptions.Deprecated error.

The cms.middleware.media.PlaceholderMediaMiddleware middleware was also removed in this process and is therefore no longer required. However you are now required to have the sekizai.context_processors.sekizai context processor in your TEMPLATE_CONTEXT_PROCESSORS setting.

All templates in CMS_TEMPLATES must at least contain the js and css sekizai namespaces.

Please refer to the documentation on Handling media in custom CMS plugins and the django-sekizai documentation for more information.

Static files moved to /static/¶

The static files (CSS/JavaScript/images) were moved from /media/ to /static/ to work with the new django.contrib.staticfiles app in Django 1.3. This means you will have to make sure you serve static files as well as media files on your server.

Warning

If you use Django 1.2.x you will not have a django.contrib.staticfiles app. Instead you need the django-staticfiles backport.

Features deprecated in 2.2¶

`django-dbgettext` support¶

The django-dbgettext support has been fully dropped in 2.2 in favour of the built-in multi-lingual support mechanisms.

Upgrading from 2.1.x and Django 1.2.x¶

Upgrading dependencies¶

Upgrade both your version of django CMS and Django by running the following commands.

pip install --upgrade django-cms==2.2 django==1.3.1

If you are using django-reversion make sure to have at least version 1.4 installed

pip install --upgrade django-reversion==1.4

Also, make sure that django-mptt stays at a version compatible with django CMS

pip install --upgrade django-mptt==0.5.1

Updates to `settings.py`¶

The following changes will need to be made in your settings.py file:

ADMIN_MEDIA_PREFIX = '/static/admin'
STATIC_ROOT = os.path.join(PROJECT_PATH, 'static')
STATIC_URL = "/static/"

Note

These are not django CMS settings. Refer to the Django documentation on staticfiles for more information.

Note

Please make sure the static sub-folder exists in your project and is writeable.

Note

PROJECT_PATH is the absolute path to your project. See Configuring your project for django CMS for instructions on how to set PROJECT_PATH.

Remove the following from TEMPLATE_CONTEXT_PROCESSORS:

django.core.context_processors.auth

Add the following to TEMPLATE_CONTEXT_PROCESSORS:

django.contrib.auth.context_processors.auth
django.core.context_processors.static
sekizai.context_processors.sekizai

Remove the following from MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES:

cms.middleware.media.PlaceholderMediaMiddleware

Remove the following from INSTALLED_APPS:

publisher

Add the following to INSTALLED_APPS:

sekizai
django.contrib.staticfiles

Template Updates¶

Make sure to add sekizai tags and cms_toolbar to your CMS templates.

Note

cms_toolbar is only needed if you wish to use the front-end editing. See Backwards incompatible changes for more information

Here is a simple example for a base template called base.html:

{% load cms_tags sekizai_tags %}
<html>
  <head>
      {% render_block "css" %}
  </head>
  <body>
      {% cms_toolbar %}
      {% placeholder base_content %}
      {% block base_content%}{% endblock %}
      {% render_block "js" %}
  </body>
</html>

Database Updates¶

Run the following commands to upgrade your database

python manage.py syncdb
python manage.py migrate

Static Media¶

Add the following to urls.py to serve static media when developing:

if settings.DEBUG:
    urlpatterns = patterns('',
    url(r'^media/(?P<path>.*)$', 'django.views.static.serve',
        {'document_root': settings.MEDIA_ROOT, 'show_indexes': True}),
    url(r'', include('django.contrib.staticfiles.urls')),
) + urlpatterns

Also run this command to collect static files into your STATIC_ROOT:

python manage.py collectstatic

Using django CMS¶

Note

This is a new section in the django CMS documentation, and a priority for the project. If you’d like to contribute to it, we’d love to hear from you - join us on the #django-cms IRC channel on freenode or the django-cms-developers email list.

If you don’t have an IRC client, you can join our IRC channel using the KiwiIRC web client, which works pretty well.

The Using django CMS documentation is divided into two parts.

First, there’s a tutorial that takes you step-by-step through key processes. Once you’ve completed this you will be familiar with the basics of content editing using the system.

The tutorial contains numerous links to items in the reference section.

The documentation in these two sections focuses on the basics of content creation and editing using django CMS’s powerful front-end editing mode. It’s suitable for non-technical and technical audiences alike.

However, it can only cover the basics that are common to most sites built using django CMS. Your own site will likely have many custom changes and special purpose plugins which we cannot cover here. Nevertheless, by the end of this guide you should be comfortable with the content editing process using django CMS. Many of the skills you’ll learn will be transferable to any custom plugins your site may have.

Tutorial¶

Note

This is a new section in the django CMS documentation, and a priority for the project. If you’d like to contribute to it, we’d love to hear from you - join us on the #django-cms IRC channel on freenode or the django-cms-developers email list.

If you don’t have an IRC client, you can join our IRC channel using the KiwiIRC web client, which works pretty well.

It’s strongly recommended that you follow this tutorial step-by-step. It has been designed to introduce you to the system in a methodical way, and each step builds on the previous one.

Log in¶

When you visit a brand new site for the first time, you will be invited to log in.

The developers of your site are responsible for creating and providing the login credentials so consult them if you are unsure.

Create a page¶

Create your first page¶

django CMS’s Create Page wizard will open a new dialog box.

Select Next, and provide a Title and some basic text content for the new page (you’ll be able to add formatting to this text in a moment), then hit Create.

Here’s your newly-created page, together with the django CMS toolbar, your primary tool for managing django CMS content.

Publish a page¶

Your newly-created page is just a draft, and won’t actually be published until you decide. As an editor, you can see drafts, but other visitors to your site will only see published pages. Hit 'Publish page now' to publish it.

To edit the page further, switch back into editing mode, using the button that appears, and return to the published version of the page using the 'View published' button.

In editing mode, double-click on the paragraph of text to change it. This will open the Text plugin containing it. Make changes, add some formatting, and Save it again.

You can continue making and previewing changes privately until you are ready to publish them.

Create a second page¶

Hit 'Create' to create a second page. This opens the Create page dialog:

In django CMS, pages can be arranged hierarchically. This is important for larger sites. Choose whether the new page should be a sub-page - a child - of the existing page, or be on the same level in the hierarchy - a sibling.

Once again, give the page a Title and some basic text content. Continue making changes to content and formatting, and then Publish it as you did previously.

Changing page settings¶

The django CMS toolbar offers other useful editing tools.

Switch to Edit mode on one of your pages, and from the toolbar select Page > Page settings.... The Change page dialog that opens allows you to manage key settings for your page.

Some key settings:

Slug: The page’s slug is used to form its URL. For example, a page Lenses that is a sub-page of Photography might have a URL that ends photography/lenses. You can change the automatically-generated slug of a page if you wish to. Keep slugs short and meaningful, as they are useful to human beings and search engines alike.
Menu Title: If you have a page called Photography: theory and practice, you might not want the whole title to appear in menus - shortening it to Photography would make more sense.
Page Title: By default, a page’s <title> element is taken from the Title, but you can override this here. The <title> element isn’t displayed on the page, but is used by search engines and web browsers - as far as they are concerned, it’s the page’s real title.
Description meta tag: A short piece of text that will be used by search engines (and displayed in lists of search results) and other indexing systems.

There are also some Advanced Settings, but you don’t need to be concerned about these now.

Structure and content modes¶

The Structure/Content mode control in the toolbar lets you switch between two different editing modes.

You’ve already used Content mode, in which you can double-click on content to edit it.

In Structure mode, you can manage the placement of content within the page structure.

Switch to Structure mode. This reveals the structure board containing the placeholders available on the page, and the plugins in them:

Here there is just one placeholder, called Content, containing one plugin - a text plugin that begins Lorem ipsum dolor....

Add a second plugin¶

Let’s add another plugin.

Select the Add plugin icon (+) and choose Text from the list of available plugin types.

This will open a familiar text editor; add some text and Save. Now in the structure board you’ll see the new Text plugin - which you can move around within the structure, to re-order the plugins.

Note

You don’t need to save these changes manually - they are saved automatically as soon as you make them. However, they still need to be published in order for other users to see them.

Each plugin in the structure board is available for editing by double-clicking or selecting the edit icon.

You can switch back to content mode to see the effect of your changes, and Publish the page to make them public.

Note

Touch-screen users

django CMS supports touch-screen interfaces, though there are currently some limitations in support. You will be able to complete the tutorial using a touch-screen device, but please consult Using touch-screen devices with django CMS, and see the notes on Device support.

Reference for content editors¶

Note

This is a new section in the django CMS documentation, and a priority for the project. If you’d like to contribute to it, we’d love to hear from you - join us on the #django-cms IRC channel on freenode or the django-cms-developers email list.

If you don’t have an IRC client, you can join our IRC channel using the KiwiIRC web client, which works pretty well.

Page admin¶

The interface¶

The side-frame¶

The x closes the side-frame. To reopen the side-frame, choose one of the links from the Site menu (named example.com by default).

The triangle icon expands and collapses the side-frame, and the next expands and collapses the main frame.

You can also adjust the side-frame’s width by dragging it.

Admin views & forms¶

Page list¶

The page list gives you an overview of your pages and their status. By default you get the basics:

The page you’re currently on is highlighted in grey (in this case, Journalism, the last in the list).

From left to right, items in the list have:

an expand/collapse control, if the item has children (Home and Cheese above)
tab that can be used to drag and drop the item to a new place in the list
the page’s Title
a soft-root indicator (Cheese has soft-root applied; Home is the menu root anyway)
language version indicators and controls:
- blank: the translation does not exist; pressing the indicator will open its Basic settings (in all other cases, hovering will reveal Publish/Unpublish options)
- grey: the translation exists but is unpublished
- green: the translation is published
- blue (pulsing): the translation has an amended draft

If you expand the width of the side-frame, you’ll see more:

Menu indicates whether the page will appear in navigation menus
under Actions, options are:
- edit Basic settings
- copy page
- add child (which can be placed before, after or below the page)
- cut page
- delete page
info displays additional information about the page

Basic page settings¶

To see a page’s basic settings, select Page settings... from the Page menu. If your side-frame is wide enough, you can also use the page edit icon that appears in the Actions column in the page list view.

Required fields¶

The page Title will typically be used by your site’s templates, and displayed at the top of the page and in the browser’s title bar and bookmarks. In this case search engines will use it too.

A Slug is part of the page’s URL, and you’ll usually want it to reflect the Title. In fact it will be generated automatically from the title, in an appropriate format - but it’s always worth checking that your slugs are as short and sweet as possible.

Optional fields¶

Menu title is used to override what is displayed in navigation menus - usually when the full Title is too long to be used there. For example, if the Title is “ACME Incorporated: Our story”, it’s going to be far too long to work well in the navigation menu, especially for your mobile users. “Our story” would be a more appropriate Menu title.

Page title is expected to be used by django CMS templates for the <title> element of the page (which will otherwise simply use the Title field). If provided, it will be the Page title that appears in the browser’s title bar and bookmarks, and in search engine results.

Description meta tag is expected to be used to populate a <meta> tag in the document <head>. This is not displayed on the page, but is used for example by search engines for indexing and to show a summary of page content. It can also be used by other Django applications for similar purposes. Description is restricted to 155 characters, the number of characters search engines typically use to show content.

Advanced settings¶

A page’s advanced settings are available by selecting Advanced settings... from the Page menu, or from the Advanced settings button at the bottom of the basic settings.

Most of the time it’s not necessary to touch these settings.

Overwrite URL allows you to change the URL from the default. By default, the URL for the page is the slug of the current page prefixed with slugs from parent pages. For example, the default URL for a page might be /about/acme-incorporated/our-vision/. The Overwrite URL field allows you to shorten this to /our-vision/ while still keeping the page and its children organised under the About page in the navigation.
Redirect allows you to redirect users to a different page. This is useful if you have moved content to another page but don’t want to break URLs your users may have bookmarked or affect the rank of the page in search engine results.
Template lets you set the template used by the current page. Your site will likely have a custom list of available templates. Templates are configured by developers to allow certain types of content to be entered into the page while still retaining a consistent layout.
Id is an advanced field that should only be used in consultation with your site’s developers. Changing this without consulting developers may result in a broken site.
Soft root allows you to shorten the navigation hierarchy to something manageable on sites that have deeply nested pages. When selected, this page will act as the top-level page in the navigation.
Attached menu allows you to add a custom menu to the page. This is typically used by developers to add custom menu logic to the current page. Changing this requires a server restart so it should only be changed in consultation with developers.
Application allows you to add custom applications (e.g. a weblog app) to the current page. This also is typically used by developers and requires a server restart to take effect.
X Frame Options allows you to control whether the current page can be embedded in an iframe on another web page.

Working with admin in the frontend¶

The Administration... item in the Site menu, opens the side-frame containing the site’s Django admin. This allows the usual interaction with the “traditional” Django admin.

Redirection¶

When an object is created or edited while the user is on the website frontend, a redirection occurs to redirect the user to the current address of the created/edited instance.

This redirection follows the rules below:

an anonymous user (for example, after logging out) is always redirected to the home page
when a model instance has changed (see Detecting URL changes) the frontend is redirected to the instance URL, and:
- in case of django CMS pages, the publishing state is taken into account, and then
  - if the toolbar is in Draft mode the user is redirected to the draft page URL
  - if in Live mode:
    - the user is redirected to the page if is published
    - otherwise it’s switched in Draft mode and redirected to the draft page URL
if the edited object or its URL can’t be retrieved, no redirection occurs

Yes, it’s complex - but there is a logic to it, and it’s actually easier to understand when you’re using it than by reading about it, so don’t worry too much. The point is that django CMS always tries to redirect you to the most sensible place when it has to.

`None`:	This means the placeholder and the page will not even consider this plugin when calculating the page expiration.
`datetime`:	A specific date and time (timezone-aware) in the future when this plugin’s content expires. Important The returned `datetime` must be timezone-aware or the plugin will be ignored (with a warning) during expiration calculations.
`int`:	An number of seconds that this plugin’s content can be cached.

Parameters:	request – Relevant `HTTPRequest` instance. instance – The `CMSPlugin` instance that is being rendered.
Return type:	`None` or `datetime` or `int`

list of strings:
`None`:	This means that this plugin declares no headers for the cache to be varied upon. (default)
string:	The name of a header to vary caching upon.
	A list of strings, each corresponding to a header to vary the cache upon.

django CMS documentation¶

Overview¶

Tutorials¶

How-to guides¶

Key topics¶

Reference¶

Join us online¶

Why django CMS?¶

Release Notes¶

Table of contents¶

Tutorials¶

Installing django CMS¶

Requirements¶

Your working environment¶

Create and activate a virtual env¶

Use the django CMS installer¶

Start up the runserver¶

Templates & Placeholders¶

Templates¶

Placeholders¶

Static Placeholders¶

Rendering Menus¶

Integrating applications¶

Install the polls application¶

Improve the templates for Polls¶

Set up a new polls_cms_integration application¶

Create the application¶

Add it to INSTALLED_APPS¶

Plugins¶

Install the polls application¶

Set up a base template for the application¶

Create a new polls_cms_integration application¶

The Plugin Model¶

The Plugin Class¶

The template¶

Integrate the polls_cms_integration application¶

Apphooks¶

Create an apphook¶

What this all means¶

Apply the apphook to a page¶

Extending the Toolbar¶

Create the toolbar¶

What this all means¶

See it at work¶

Extending the navigation menu¶

Create the navigation menu¶

Content creation wizards¶

Integrating a third-party application¶

Basic installation¶

Django settings¶

INSTALLED_APPS¶

THUMBNAIL_PROCESSORS¶

ALDRYN_BOILERPLATE_NAME¶

STATICFILES_FINDERS¶

TEMPLATES¶

Migrate the database¶

Create a new apphooked page¶

Add new News & Blog articles¶

How-to guides¶

Installing django CMS by hand¶

Requirements¶

Recommended¶

Installing¶

Installing in a virtualenv using pip¶

Installing on Ubuntu¶

Installing on Mac OSX¶

Databases¶

Configuration and setup¶

Preparing the environment¶

Create a new Django project¶

Configuring your project for django CMS¶

URL configuration¶

Creating templates¶

Initial database setup¶

Check you did everything right¶

Up and running!¶

Custom Plugins¶

Why would you need to write a plugin?¶

Overview¶

A note about cms.plugin_base.CMSPluginBase¶

Tutorials ¶

How-to guides ¶

Key topics ¶

Reference ¶

Install the `polls` application¶

Set up a new `polls_cms_integration` application¶

Add it to `INSTALLED_APPS`¶

Install the `polls` application¶

Create a new `polls_cms_integration` application¶

Integrate the `polls_cms_integration` application¶

`INSTALLED_APPS`¶

`THUMBNAIL_PROCESSORS`¶

`ALDRYN_BOILERPLATE_NAME`¶

`STATICFILES_FINDERS`¶

`TEMPLATES`¶

A note about `cms.plugin_base.CMSPluginBase`¶