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A Guide On Building a Django-Oscar Application with a Dashboard

by Farid MusaMarch 25th, 2021

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Learning Django-Oscar can be cumbersome. In this tutorial, you will learn how to create a brand new Oscar app with a dashboard.

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In this tutorial, you are going to learn how to create a new Django app and integrate it into the Oscar e-commerce framework. Particularly, we will create a new sample Django app called

boutique

and integrate it to Oscar's default front and dashboard.

Getting ready (Django-Oscar)

First, it is necessary to create a virtual environment to work in. I use pipenv as a virtual environment for its simplicity and ease of use. Create a directory called

/myoscarapp

, move inside and run the following command:

$ pipenv shell

Then install the django-oscar using pip:

$ pip install django-oscar[sorl-thumbnail]

Now create a brand new Dango project using the following command and rename the created directory to

src

for convenience:

$ django-admin startproject myoscarproject
$ mv myoscarproject src

Next, configure Django

settings.py

and

urls.py

as described in Oscar's corresponding docs. Run

makemigrations

and migrate:

$ python manage.py makemigrations
$ python manage.py migrate

Test the website:

$ python manage.py runserver

The following screen should be now available:

Creating “boutique” app for Django-Oscar

The new app is created as usual using the following command:

$ python manage.py startapp boutique

Once again as usual after the app is created, it is necessary to register the app in

INSTALLED_APPS

settings.py

as shown below:

INSTALLED_APPS = [
        ...
        'boutique.apps.BoutiqueConfig',
    ]

Similarly, your

urls.py

should look like this:

from django.apps import apps
from django.urls import include, path
from django.contrib import admin
urlpatterns = [
    path('i18n/', include('django.conf.urls.i18n')),
    path('admin/', admin.site.urls),
    #path('dashboard/boutique/', apps.get_app_config('boutique_dashboard').urls),
    path('boutique/', apps.get_app_config('boutique').urls),
    path('', include(apps.get_app_config('oscar').urls[0])),
]

In the code above, line with

boutique_dashboard

URL configuration is temporarily commented out and will be turned on when Oscar's dashboard app is forked.

Models for “boutique” app

Create the following model that will represent a single boutique with three fields.

from django.db import models
class Boutique(models.Model):
    name = models.CharField(max_length=255, blank=True, null=True)
    manager = models.CharField(max_length=150, blank=True, null=True)
    city = models.CharField(max_length=150, blank=True, null=True)
class Meta:
        app_label = 'boutique'

App configs for “boutique” app

While the usual Django app’s config Class in

apps.py

inherits Django's default

django.apps.AppConfig

class, Oscar app's must inherit

oscar.core.application.OscarConfig

instead. Your

apps.py

should look like this:

from oscar.core.application import OscarConfig
from django.urls import path, re_path
from oscar.core.loading import get_class
class BoutiqueConfig(OscarConfig):
    name = 'boutique'
    namespace = 'boutique'
def ready(self):
        super().ready()
        self.boutique_list_view = get_class(
            'boutique.views', 'BoutiqueListView')
        self.boutique_detail_view = get_class(
            'boutique.views', 'BoutiqueDetailView')
def get_urls(self):
        urls = super().get_urls()
        urls += [
            path('', self.boutique_list_view.as_view(), name='index'),
            re_path(r'^view/(?P<pk>\d+)/$',
                    self.boutique_detail_view.as_view(), name='details'),
        ]
        return self.post_process_urls(urls)

It is optional to use

get_class

and

get_model

when developing your own app but required when overriding Oscar apps. However, I prefer using Oscar's approach in all cases as I previously encountered various errors when importing modules using

import

statement.

Admin for “boutique” app

This step is optional and Oscar’s dashboard is sufficient to add, modify and remove

Boutique

elements to the database. However, for early testing let's register our model in Django's admin. Add the following code to the

admin.py

in the app's directory.

from django.contrib import admin
from oscar.core.loading import get_model
Boutique = get_model('boutique', 'Boutique')
class BoutiqueAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    pass
admin.site.register(Boutique, BoutiqueAdmin)

Now that the model is registered in Django’s admin, go on and add few items for testing.

To access Django’s admin you will need to create a super user using command
python manage.py createsuperuser

Views for “boutique” app

There is nothing special in the implementation of views that will deliver context to the front pages. Following is a working

views.py

based on Django's generic class-based views.

from django.views import generic
from oscar.core.loading import get_model
Boutique = get_model('boutique', 'Boutique')
class BoutiqueListView(generic.ListView):
    model = Boutique
    template_name = 'boutique/boutique_list.html'
    context_object_name = 'boutique_list'
class BoutiqueDetailView(generic.DetailView):
    model = Boutique
    template_name = 'boutique/boutique_details.html'
    context_object_name = 'boutique'

Front-end templates for “boutique” views

First and foremost, let’s override Oscar’s navigation template by adding a URL to our

BoutiqueListView

. First, create a directory called

oscar

/src/templates

directory. Any template file with the same relative path Oscar's templates from source code will be overridden by Oscar and become a higher priority template. Because Oscar is developed in a very smart and customizable way, it is very easy to add an element to the original Oscar template navigation. The original template HTML file from Oscar's source code can be found in

/templates/oscar/partials/nav_primary.html

. Accordingly, we need to create a file

oscar/partials/nav_primary.html

that will contain the following code:

{% extends "oscar/partials/nav_primary.html" %}
{% load i18n %}
{% block nav_items %}
{{ block.super }}
<li class="nav-item dropdown">
    <a class="nav-link" href="#" role="button">
    {% trans "Boutiques" %}
    </a>
</li>
{% endblock %}

In the code above, we first extend the original Oscar’s template. Then we override the block

nav_items

by adding new elements to Oscar's default front-end navigation. After restarting the server, the following front should show up:

Template for list of boutiques

Previously we created a view

BoutiqueListView

, which is responsible for delivering the context with a list of Boutique instances to the template

boutique/boutique_list.html

. Therefore, we first create an HTML file

/src/templates/boutique/boutique_list.html

. Notice that this template file is not placed under

/src/templates/oscar

the directory. This is because we do not override Oscar's template and merely creating a new custom template. However, in our case, it does extend the default Oscar layout template as shown:

{% extends "oscar/layout.html" %}
{% load i18n %}
{% load product_tags %}
{% block title %}
{% trans "Boutiques" %} | {{ block.super }}
{% endblock %}
{% block breadcrumbs %}
    <nav aria-label="breadcrumb">
        <ol class="breadcrumb">
            <li class="breadcrumb-item">
                <a href="{{ homepage_url }}">{% trans "Home" %}</a>
            </li>
            <li class="breadcrumb-item active" aria-current="page">{% trans "Boutiques" %}</li>
        </ol>
    </nav>
{% endblock %}
{% block headertext %}
    {% trans "Boutique" %}
{% endblock %}
{% block content %}
    {% if not boutique_list %}
        <p>{% trans "There are no boutique at the moment." %}</p>
    {% else %}
        {% for boutique in boutique_list %}
        <p>
          <h2><a href="{% url 'boutique:details' boutique.pk %}">{{ boutique.name }}</a></h2>
          The boutique is in: {{ boutique.city }}
        </p> <hr/>
        {% endfor %}
    {% endif %}
{% endblock content %}

The result should look like this:

Template for boutique details

Now that we have a page with a list of our boutique elements let’s add a page where users can view details of any given boutique. Similarly to the listing template, let’s create a new HTML file

/src/templates/boutique/boutique_details.html

with the following code:

{% extends "oscar/layout.html" %}
{% load i18n %}
{% load product_tags %}
{% block title %}
{% trans "Boutiques" %} | {{ block.super }}
{% endblock %}
{% block breadcrumbs %}
    <nav aria-label="breadcrumb">
        <ol class="breadcrumb">
            <li class="breadcrumb-item">
                <a href="{{ homepage_url }}">{% trans "Home" %}</a>
            </li>
            <li class="breadcrumb-item" aria-current="page">
              <a href="{% url 'boutique:index' %}">{% trans "Boutiques" %}</a>
            </li>
            <li class="breadcrumb-item active" aria-current="page">{{ boutique.name }}</li>
        </ol>
    </nav>
{% endblock %}
{% block headertext %}
    {% trans "Boutique" %}
{% endblock %}
{% block content %}
    <p>
      <h2>{{ boutique.name }}</h2> <br>
      The boutique is in: {{ boutique.city }} <br>
      The boutique's manager is Mr/Mrs: <strong>{{ boutique.manager }} </strong>
    </p>
{% endblock content %}

The result should look like this:

At this point the app’s model, configs, and front-end templates are ready. Now we can move on to develop an Oscar dashboard for the boutique app.

Creating a Django-Oscar dashboard app to manage boutiques

Let’s create a new app called dashboard inside the boutique app directory:

$ mkdir boutique/dashboard

Then initialize a new Django app using the following command:

$ python manage.py startapp dashboard boutique/dashboard

You can delete
admin.py
,
models.py
and
tests.py
, because these are not required for the Oscar's dashboard app.

Once again after the dashboard app is created, it is necessary to register the app in

INSTALLED_APPS

settings.py

as shown below:

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    ...
    'boutique.dashboard.apps.DashboardConfig',
]

If you run the server at this moment it will not work as you need to first complete the app configurations.

In the first part, we had a commented-out line in our

myoscarproject/urls.py

. Now that the dashboard app is created we need to uncomment it as shown below:

from django.apps import apps
from django.urls import include, path
from django.contrib import admin
urlpatterns = [
    ...
    path('dashboard/boutique/', apps.get_app_config('boutique_dashboard').urls),
    ...
]

However, at this point label,

boutique_dashboard

is not associated with any configuration. Therefore, let's move on and create the Boutique Dashboard Oscar app config.

App configs for the Boutique’s dashboard

Configuration for boutique dashboard app is similar to configs from the first part of this tutorial. With few additions as shown below:

from django.urls import path
from oscar.core.application import OscarDashboardConfig
from oscar.core.loading import get_class
class DashboardConfig(OscarDashboardConfig):
    name = 'boutique.dashboard'
    label = 'boutique_dashboard'
    namespace = 'boutique-dashboard'
    default_permissions = ['is_staff']
    def ready(self):
        self.boutique_list_view = get_class(
            'boutique.dashboard.views', 'DashboardBoutiqueListView')
        self.boutique_create_view = get_class(
            'boutique.dashboard.views', 'DashboardBoutiqueCreateView')
        self.boutique_update_view = get_class(
            'boutique.dashboard.views', 'DashboardBoutiqueUpdateView')
        self.boutique_delete_view = get_class(
            'boutique.dashboard.views', 'DashboardBoutiqueDeleteView')
    def get_urls(self):
        urls = [
            path('', self.boutique_list_view.as_view(), name='boutique-list'),
            path('create/', self.boutique_create_view.as_view(),
                 name='boutique-create'),
            path('update/<int:pk>/', self.boutique_update_view.as_view(),
                 name='boutique-update'),
            path('delete/<int:pk>/', self.boutique_delete_view.as_view(),
                 name='boutique-delete'),
        ]
        return self.post_process_urls(urls)

One important point in this configuration is to change the

label

parameter. The Django Oscar's default dashboard app conflicts with

DashboardConfig

the Boutique dashboard app. Django's documentation state that:

AppConfig.label defaults to the last component of name.

Therefore, it is necessary to choose a different label

boutique_dashboard

in order to "tell" Django that this dashboard app is different from Oscar's built-in dashboard app.

Another difference between dashboard app config from primary boutique app config is the

default_permissions

parameter. This parameter sets Oscar's dashboard permissions for this dashboard app. Since the Oscar has multiple user permission levels like one that has Fulfilment Parters, setting this parameter

is_staff

disables access to this dashboard for any user except c users like super-users.

Forms for the Boutique’s dashboard app

First, it is necessary to create forms for your custom dashboard app. Create a

forms.py

file in

boutique/dashboard

directory and add the following code:

from django import forms
from django.db.models import Q
from django.utils.translation import gettext_lazy as _
from oscar.core.loading import get_model
Boutique = get_model('boutique', 'Boutique')
class DashboardBoutiqueSearchForm(forms.Form):
    name = forms.CharField(label=_('Boutique name'), required=False)
    city = forms.CharField(label=_('City'), required=False)
    def is_empty(self):
        d = getattr(self, 'cleaned_data', {})
        def empty(key): return not d.get(key, None)
        return empty('name') and empty('city')
    def apply_city_filter(self, qs, value):
        words = value.replace(',', ' ').split()
        q = [Q(city__icontains=word) for word in words]
        return qs.filter(*q)
    def apply_name_filter(self, qs, value):
        return qs.filter(name__icontains=value)
    def apply_filters(self, qs):
        for key, value in self.cleaned_data.items():
            if value:
                qs = getattr(self, 'apply_%s_filter' % key)(qs, value)
        return qs
class DashboardBoutiqueCreateUpdateForm(forms.ModelForm):
    class Meta:
        model = Boutique
        fields = ('name', 'manager', 'city')

In the code above

DashboardBoutiqueSearchForm

is a form to filter Boutique instances in the dashboard. We design our form so that it can filter by model's

city

and

name

fields. The form

DashboardBoutiqueCreateUpdateForm

is the create and update form required to create or edit a boutique instance. This form inherits Django's default

forms.ModelForm

so it is relatively simple to make it work.

Views for the Boutique’s dashboard app

There are four different views required to deploy a custom Oscar dashboard. These are:

View to list boutique instances DashboardBoutiqueListView
View to create a new boutique instance DashboardBoutiqueCreateView
View to update/edit a boutique instance DashboardBoutiqueUpdateView
View to delete a boutique instance DashboardBoutiqueDeleteView

Prior to moving on to the views add the following code to the head of a

views.py

the file of the boutique's dashboard app:

from django.contrib import messages
from django.template.loader import render_to_string
from django.urls import reverse_lazy
from django.utils.translation import gettext
from django.utils.translation import gettext_lazy as _
from django.views import generic
from oscar.core.loading import get_class, get_model
Boutique = get_model('boutique', 'Boutique')
BoutiqueCreateUpdateForm = get_class(
    'boutique.dashboard.forms', 'DashboardBoutiqueCreateUpdateForm')
DashboardBoutiqueSearchForm = get_class(
    'boutique.dashboard.forms', 'DashboardBoutiqueSearchForm')

Listing Boutique instances in the dashboard

Listing boutique instances in a custom dashboard app is no different than any other Django app. The list view inherits Django’s

generic.ListView

as shown in the following code:

class DashboardBoutiqueListView(generic.ListView):
    model = Boutique
    template_name = "dashboard/boutique/boutique_list.html"
    context_object_name = "boutique_list"
    paginate_by = 20
    filterform_class = DashboardBoutiqueSearchForm
    def get_title(self):
        data = getattr(self.filterform, 'cleaned_data', {})
        name = data.get('name', None)
        city = data.get('city', None)
        if name and not city:
            return gettext('Boutiques matching "%s"') % (name)
        elif name and city:
            return gettext('Boutiques matching "%s" near "%s"') % (name, city)
        elif city:
            return gettext('Boutiques near "%s"') % (city)
        else:
            return gettext('Boutiques')
    def get_context_data(self, **kwargs):
        data = super().get_context_data(**kwargs)
        data['filterform'] = self.filterform
        data['queryset_description'] = self.get_title()
        return data
    def get_queryset(self):
        qs = self.model.objects.all()
        self.filterform = self.filterform_class(self.request.GET)
        if self.filterform.is_valid():
            qs = self.filterform.apply_filters(qs)
        return qs

The only non-trivial part of the code above is the additional parameter,

filterform_class

, which is essentially a parameter that is recognized and processed by Oscar's templates.

Creating Boutique instances in the dashboard

Similarly, the view responsible for creating the boutique instances inherits

generic.CreateView

and is shown in the following code:

class DashboardBoutiqueCreateView(generic.CreateView):
    model = Boutique
    template_name = 'dashboard/boutique/boutique_update.html'
    form_class = BoutiqueCreateUpdateForm
    success_url = reverse_lazy('boutique-dashboard:boutique-list')
    def get_context_data(self, **kwargs):
        ctx = super().get_context_data(**kwargs)
        ctx['title'] = _('Create new boutique')
        return ctx
    def forms_invalid(self, form, inlines):
        messages.error(
            self.request,
            "Your submitted data was not valid - please correct the below errors")
        return super().forms_invalid(form, inlines)
    def forms_valid(self, form, inlines):
        response = super().forms_valid(form, inlines)
        msg = render_to_string('dashboard/boutique/messages/boutique_saved.html',
                               {'boutique': self.object})
        messages.success(self.request, msg, extra_tags='safe')
        return response

In the code above, the parameter

success_url

is assigned to

reverse_lazy

and not reverse because the URL will be evaluated lazily(or when required). Moreover, Oscar uses Django's built-in messages framework to pass success and fail messages to the templates. The messages are handled in corresponding methods

forms_invalid

and

forms_valid

Updating Boutique instances in the dashboard

View for updating Boutique instance is very similar to create a view and uses the same template but inherits

generic.UpdateView

instead.

class DashboardBoutiqueUpdateView(generic.UpdateView):
    model = Boutique
    template_name = "dashboard/boutique/boutique_update.html"
    form_class = BoutiqueCreateUpdateForm
    success_url = reverse_lazy('boutique-dashboard:boutique-list')
    def get_context_data(self, **kwargs):
        ctx = super().get_context_data(**kwargs)
        ctx['title'] = self.object.name
        return ctx
    def forms_invalid(self, form, inlines):
        messages.error(
            self.request,
            "Your submitted data was not valid - please correct the below errors")
        return super().forms_invalid(form, inlines)
    def forms_valid(self, form, inlines):
        msg = render_to_string('dashboard/boutique/messages/boutique_saved.html',
                               {'boutique': self.object})
        messages.success(self.request, msg, extrforms_valida_tags='safe')
        return super().forms_valid(form, inlines)

Deleting Boutique instances from the dashboard

Delete view is rather simple compared to others and it inherits Django’s

generic.DeleteView

as shown below:

class DashboardBoutiqueDeleteView(generic.DeleteView):
    model = Boutique
    template_name = "dashboard/boutique/boutique_delete.html"
    success_url = reverse_lazy('boutique-dashboard:boutique-list')

Finally, now that views are completed we can move on to templates.

Templates for the Boutique’s dashboard app

For templates let’s first create a directory

/src/templates/dashboard

. In this directory, we must implement three-view templates and one message template:

Template for list view: /dashboard/boutique/boutique_list.html
Template for update view: /dashboard/boutique/boutique_update.html
Template for delete view: /dashboard/boutique/boutique_delete.html
Message template: /dashboard/boutique/messages/boutique_saved.html

Templates are implemented the same way as was described in the first part of this tutorial except that these templates must extend different base layout,

{% extends 'oscar/dashboard/layout.html' %}

. Since templates are long you can find them in the Git repository of this tutorial. After templates are ready the following screen will be available when you go to http://127.0.0.1:8000/dashboard/boutique/ URL:

Adding “Boutiques” navigation item to Django-Oscar’s dashboard

Finally, after Boutiques are ready we need to add a navigation item to Oscar’s dashboard navigation. Luckily, Django-Oscar provides a very easy way to do this. You need to add the following code to the settings but make sure that it comes after importing Oscar’s defaults:

from django.utils.translation import gettext_lazy as _
... # Django's Other Settings
from oscar.defaults import *
OSCAR_DASHBOARD_NAVIGATION.append({
    'label': _('Boutiques'),
    'icon': 'fas fa-store',
    'url_name': 'boutique-dashboard:boutique-list',
})

Once the navigation item is added you will get the following screen when entering your Oscar Dashboard:

Conclusion

At the end of this tutorial, you should be able to create a brand new Django Oscar app with a working dashboard and everything. I hope this tutorial was helpful for the reader and made one’s life easier while learning such an amazing e-commence framework like Django-Oscar.