Question

The code for my web app is currently on dropbox and I simply change the TEMLPLATE_DIRS variables in the settings.py module when working on my work and home computers.

I have run into an issue this evening when firing up the app. I am getting a TemplateDoesNotExist error, here are the details:

Django tried loading these templates, in this order:
Using loader django.template.loaders.filesystem.Loader:
/Users/me/Dropbox/app/MyApp/Users/me/Dropbox/app/MyApp/templates/App/Page 1/pageone.html (File does not exist)

Basically the first /Users/me/Dropbox/app/MyApp shouldn’t be there.

settings.py

TEMPLATE_DIRS = (
    "Users/danielholmes/Dropbox/app/MyApp/templates/",
)

This is going to be something stupid i think – please let me know if more info is required.

Many thanks

Answer 1

Never hardocde the directory paths in settings files. Let Python generate the absolute path names for you. This makes your project portable across different environments. Below is a good approach to define paths (and may be solve your issue also):

import os, sys

abspath = lambda *p: os.path.abspath(os.path.join(*p))

PROJECT_ROOT = abspath(os.path.dirname(__file__))
sys.path.insert(0, PROJECT_ROOT)

TEMPLATE_DIRS = (
    abspath(PROJECT_ROOT, 'templates'),
)