Question

Changed Question: 5/5/12 2:34pm (PST)

I would like to know if it is possible to render a template from form POST data and in that template, provide a button/link to an Excel spreadsheet of the same POST data that was used in the template.

I have made an Excel download using the POST, and I have rendered a template using the POST, but I would like the following to happen with the form’s Submit button is pushed:
1. Send the information from the view to template, have the template render the information, in the template have a button/link that when clicked, a window pops up asking the user if they want to Open/Save the .XLS file.

The code I am using to do each follows:
1 Render template in new URL

return render_to_response('report/result.html', {long dictionary}, context_instance=RequestContext(request))

2 Export as .XLS file using template:

response2 = render_to_response('report/result.html', {long dictionary}, context_instance=RequestContext(request))

filename = "ToolboxReport%s.xls" % (datetime.now())

response2['Content-Disposition'] = 'attachment; filename='+filename

response2['Content-Type'] = 'application/vnd.ms-excel; charset=utf-8'

return response2

Here is my intended order:
1. At Options page: select options, click Generate Report button
2. At Results page: display information, display button/link to download this info as .XLS
3. (Optional) Clicks download button: Open/Save option appears to download the same information as .XLS

I can’t seem to get the POST data from the Options page to be used in both the Results page and the .XLS download.

Answer 1

I use two different buttons on my forms, one for listing the results and one for exporting them to excel.

In the form template:

<input type="submit" name="list" value="List Results" />
<input type="submit" name="excel" value="Export to Excel" />

And in my view function:

# process your post data here...

# end processing your post data
if request.REQUEST.get('excel'): 
    # excel button clicked
    result = '<your content result here>'
    response = http.HttpResponse(result.encode("<encoding>", 'ignore'), content_type='application/vnd.ms-excel;charset=<charset>')
    response['Content-Disposition'] = 'attachment; filename="reports.csv"'
    response['Expires'] = "Mon, 26 Jul 2013 05:00:00 GMT"
    return response
elif request.REQUEST.get('list'):
    # List button clicked
    return render_to_response(<some render param here>, <some context>, <etc>)