Question

I have the following view within an app called ‘manager’:

class AddObj(CreateView):
    model = Obj
    form_model = ObjForm
    template_name = 'obj_add.html'
    success_url = 'obj'
    @method_decorator(login_required)
    def dispatch(self, *args, **kwargs):
        return super(AddWar, self).dispatch(*args, **kwargs)

The template is located in:
[project folder]/templates/manager/obj_add.html

If I specify template_name=’manager/obj_add.html’, it loads.

Also, since I’m using the django template dependency to create breadcrumbs, I want obj_add.html to extend from templates/manager/m_base.html, which extends from templates/structure.html and adds a link to the breadcrumb block, and it loads if I call {% extends “manager/m_base.html” %}.

My question is: Doesn’t django look for the templates recursively through the templates folder? Is it normal to have to specify the folder?

Answer 1

The reason you specify the app name when setting the template is twofold; there may be multiple templates of the same name, and you can have a project-level template override.

A third-party app will often have basic templates, though you may want to shuffle or override some of the blocks for your own purpose. For example:

App template:

[project]/manager/templates/manager/obj_add.html

Project override template:

[project]/templates/manager/obj_add.html

You can change the locations where templates will be loaded from.