django-site-basics

A reusable app to add favicon.ico, robots.txt, SEO tricks and 404/500 error pages handling for your site.

Installation

Install "django-site-basics" using pip or easy_install:

pip install django-site-basics

Add "site_basics" and optionally "sitemetrics" to your INSTALLED_APPS in settings.py:

INSTALLED_APPS = (
    ...
    'sitemetrics', # (optional) for Google Analytics support
    'site_basics',
)

Add site_basics URL patterns and handlers (if you want to use them) to urls.py:

handler404 = 'site_basics.views.page_404'
handler500 = 'site_basics.views.page_500'

urlpatterns = patterns('',
    ...
    url(r'^', include('site_basics.urls')),
)

Replace Django's LocaleMiddleware with UpdatedLocaleMiddleware in your MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES:

MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES = (
    ...
    #'django.middleware.locale.LocaleMiddleware', # disabled in favor of UpdatedLocaleMiddleware
    'site_basics.middleware.UpdatedLocaleMiddleware',
    ...
)

Usage

Favicon

Put favicon.ico into your STATIC_ROOT. and you good to go, /favicon.ico will automatically redirect to /static/favicon.ico if your STATIC_URL = '/static/'.

Otherwise you can set a custom path to your favicon using FAVICON_PATH setting. For example:

FAVICON_PATH = STATIC_URL + 'images/favicon.png'

Robots.txt

robots.txt will be working out-of-the-box but if you need to customize it put custom robots.txt file into your templates directory. If you need to change template location use ROBOTS_TEMPLATE setting (robots.txt by default). Example:

ROBOTS_TEMPLATE = 'myfolder/robots.txt'

UpdatedLocaleMiddleware

This is a fix of Django i18n_urlpatterns and SEO problem described in Yawd's article.

It changes LocaleMiddleware i18n redirects from Temporary (302) to Permanent (301) which prevents search engines from indexing and ranking double links for the same page.

To activate it replace Django's LocaleMiddleware with UpdatedLocaleMiddleware in your MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES:

MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES = (
    ...
    #'django.middleware.locale.LocaleMiddleware', # disabled in favor of UpdatedLocaleMiddleware
    'site_basics.middleware.UpdatedLocaleMiddleware',
    ...
)

Error pages

Error pages work out-of-the-box providing you fancy themes from Annanta and Robotik.

In development you can test these views by opening /test_page_404/ and /test_page_500/.

Annanta is default but you can switch to Robotik using setting:

ERROR_PAGE_THEME = 'robotik' # default is 'annanta'

You can also set a color:

ERROR_PAGE_THEME_COLOR = 'blue'

Available colors:

• blue
• green
• gray (Robotik only)
• grey (Annanta only)
• red (Annanta only)
• brown (Annanta only)

And if you're using Django CMS you can show links to your root pages by setting:

ERROR_PAGE_CMS_LINKS = True

More configuration options below...

Google Analytics (sitemetrics)

1. Add 'sitemetrics' to 'INSTALLED_APPS' in your settings file (usually 'settings.py')
2. Add '{% load sitemetrics %}' tag to the top of a template (usually base template, e.g. 'base.html')

Then you have two options that add metrics client code to your page:

• Use so-called 'four arguments' sitemetrics tag notation:

  {% sitemetrics by google for "UA-000000-0" %}
  

Here: 'google' — provider alias; 'UA-000000-0' — keycode argument. That's how you put Google Analytics client code (with 'UA-000000-0' keycode) into page.

• Use so-called 'no arguments' sitemetrics tag notation:

  {% sitemetrics %}
  

That's how you put all client codes registered and active for the current site.

Client codes are registered with sites through Django Admin site interface. 'Admin site' and 'Sites' from Django contrib are required for this option to work.

'./manage.py syncdb' is required just once for this option to work (it installs sitemetrics table into database).

Configuration

ROBOTS_TEMPLATE

Sets a template for robots.txt handler ('robots.txt' by default). Example:

ROBOTS_TEMPLATE = 'myforlder/myrobotstemplate.txt'

ERROR_PAGE_THEME

Sets a theme for error pages ('annanta' or 'robotik', 'annanta' by default). Example:

ERROR_PAGE_THEME = 'robotik'

ERROR_PAGE_THEME_COLOR

Sets a color for error pages theme ('blue' by default). Example:

ERROR_PAGE_THEME_COLOR = 'green'

ERROR_404_PAGE_TEMPLATE

404 template ('%s/404.html' % ERROR_PAGE_THEME by default). Example:

ERROR_404_PAGE_TEMPLATE = 'myforlder/404.html'

ERROR_500_PAGE_TEMPLATE

500 template ('%s/500.html' % ERROR_PAGE_THEME by default). Example:

ERROR_404_PAGE_TEMPLATE = 'myforlder/500.html'

ERROR_PAGE_LOGO_URL

Set it if you want to display your logo on the error pages (None by default). Example:

ERROR_PAGE_LOGO_URL = '%simages/logo.png' % settings.STATIC_URL

ERROR_PAGE_CMS_LINKS

Allows you to show your root menu links on the error pages if you're using Django CMS (False by default). Example:

ERROR_PAGE_CMS_LINKS = True

ERROR_PAGE_NAV_LINKS

Allows you to show your root menu links on the error pages if you're using Django CMS. Format is a tuple of tuples. Example:

ERROR_PAGE_NAV_LINKS = (
    ('/', ugettext('Home')),
))

ERROR_PAGE_SOCIAL_LINKS

Allows you to show your social media links on the error pages. Format is a tuple of tuples (empty by default).

Allowed values (because of the icons preloaded) are anything from the GoSocial icons pack.

Example:

ERROR_PAGE_SOCIAL_LINKS = (
    ('twitter', 'http://twitter.com/YOURUSERNAME'),
    ('facebook', 'http://www.facebook.com/pages/YOURUSERNAME/YOURUSERID'),
    ('last.fm', 'http://www.last.fm/user/YOURUSERNAME'),
    ('flickr', 'http://www.flickr.com/photos/YOURUSERNAME'),
    ('vimeo', 'http://vimeo.com/YOURUSERID'),
    ('rss', '/rss/'),
)

ERROR_PAGE_SEARCH_ACTION

Allows you to setup a search form on your error pages (None by default).

Additional settings:

• ERROR_PAGE_SEARCH_METHOD ('GET' by default)
• ERROR_PAGE_SEARCH_PARAM ('q' by default)

Example:

ERROR_PAGE_SEARCH_ACTION = '/search/'
ERROR_PAGE_SEARCH_METHOD = 'POST'
ERROR_PAGE_SEARCH_PARAM = 'query'

Running the Tests

You can run the tests with via:

python setup.py test

or:

python runtests.py

TODO

• Add more templates
• Add locales and translations
• Sitemaps support

Credits

• Developed and maintained under supervision of Evgeny Demchenko
• Uses django-favicon for favicon.ico handling
• Uses django-robots-txt for robots.txt handling
• Uses django-sitemetrics for Google Analytics handling
• Uses Robotik 404 error page template
• Uses Annanta 404 error page template
• Uses GoSocial icons pack
• Yawd's middleware code