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Handling static files that dont pertain to an app in Django

In the documentation https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/howto/static-files/
I read that static files should be put with their respective apps and called upon with
{% load staticfiles %}
<img src="{% static "articles/css/base.css" %}" alt="My image"/>
However later on in the docs it mentions that some static files don't pertain to a particular app. This is where STATICFILES_DIRS comes into play. If I read correctly STATICFILES_DIRS is a tuple for Django to use to look for other static files. I was wondering how would I call the static files that was called from the STATICFILES_DIRS?
ex: something like
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="{% static "/css/default.css" %}">
Also I am not sure what to put for my STATIC_ROOT. Do I leave it empty? ('')
My proj tree
mysite
\articles
\static
\articles
\css
base.css
\static
\images
\css
default.css
\js
\templates
base.html
\settings.py
This is currently in my settings.py regarding static files
# looks for static files in each app
STATICFILES_FINDERS = (
'django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.FileSystemFinder',
'django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.AppDirectoriesFinder',
)
STATICFILES_STORAGE = (
'django.contrib.staticfiles.storage.StaticFilesStorage'
)
# the absolute path to the directory where collectstatic will collect static files for deployment (OUTPUT)
STATIC_ROOT = ''
# This setting defines the additional locations the static files app will traverse if the FileSystemFinder finder is enabled.
STATICFILES_DIRS = (
# used for static assets that aren't tied to a particular app
os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'static'),
)
# URL to use when referring to static files located in STATIC_ROOT
STATIC_URL = '/static/'

Almost everything about django static is related to the django.contrib.staticfiles app. Although you need to custom edit many settings to make staticfiles work, what is does is simple. It provides a collectstatic command which collects static files from different app and put them into a single directory.
The answer to your first question is simple: Put those common static files under the /static directory of your django project directory. In your case, it's mysite/static.
Reason: First, it's the official way. You can find the following code in official doc: Managing static files (CSS, images). Second, it's reasonable. Since we put static files only used in a single app under project/appnane/static/... The project's static dir should follow the same name pattern.
STATICFILES_DIRS = (
os.path.join(BASE_DIR, "static"), # That's it!!
'/var/www/static/',
)
As I said in the comment, your should not set STATIC_ROOT to project_absolutr_path/static. Because that directory is user to put css app static files. You don't want the collectstatics command to pollute that directory especially when you are using a version control system like git/svn.
STATIC_ROOT really depends on the way you host these static files(Apache, Nginx, S3, CDN, Paas like heroku)

dealing with static files in Django

Currently I have my settings.py regarding static files set up like so
STATIC_ROOT = ''
STATICFILES_FINDERS = (
'django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.FileSystemFinder',
'django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.AppDirectoriesFinder',
)
STATICFILES_DIR = (
os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'static'),
)
STATIC_URL = '/static/'
From reading the documentation and various blogs my understanding is that STATIC_ROOT is where the static files go. It is the absolute path to the directory where collectstatic will collect static files for deployment (OUTPUT). I am not sure what to put this value as
For STATICFILES_DIR This setting defines the additional locations the static files app will traverse if the FileSystemFinder finder is enabled. So I would NEED a STATICFILES_FINDER field in my settings.py and in that field would be
('django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.FileSystemFinder',
'django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.AppDirectoriesFinder')
However, by default STATICFILES_DIR is not included in my settings.py so I added it in.
For STATIC_URL is the URL to use when referring to static files located in STATIC_ROOT. I simply left it as the default setting because I am not sure how edit this.
I am not sure how to edit my settings.py regarding static files in order to display them onto a webpage. What is a "Best Practices" way to include static files onto a webpage?
ex: {% static "static/css/default.css" %}
I read a bit about namespacing as well but I am confused about this too
ex:
STATICFILES_DIR = (
("asserts", os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'static')),
)

Best practice would be keeping each app's static files in it's own 'static' dir and running manage.py collect_static each time some static file changes.
Then, if you use default storage your files would be copied into STATIC_ROOT directory.
(But you might use custom storage, for ex for storing static files on Amazon S3 cloud)
And finally, STATIC_URL defines how your static files would be accessible from outside. In case of django dev server- it has static files app, that serves them under STATIC_URL location. In case of production server you definitely want to serve static files with either nginx/apache or with amazon S3/cloudfront (or other cloud services). In case ouf serving with nginx/apache, you must set STATIC_URL so {% static "static/css/default.css" %} will be replaced with the url relative to STATIC_ROOT, at the same time you should have this STATIC_URL location overriden in nginx/apache settings, so when final user tries to access it, it gets static file served w/o even touching django. In case of custom storage- this storage might provide it's own url (to S3 cloud for ex).

my django project static files can not be load with option debug=false

It is very strange that my django website (setup on a linux server with django 1.3) can be visit correctly with DEBUG = True. But when I changed the option to DEBUG = False the static content won't load (css files and images can not be found)
Here's related options i got in my setting.py:
DEBUG = False
STATIC_ROOT = ''
ADMIN_MEDIA_PREFIX = '/static/admin/'
STATICFILES_DIRS = ("/home/ubuntu/ls_website/static/",)
STATICFILES_FINDERS = (
'django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.FileSystemFinder',
'django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.AppDirectoriesFinder',
)
Anybody have any idea? If the version is too low, I would wait a while for 1.5 release.

I found when debug=False, django won't load static files automatically. Options are set static path in urls.py or serve static files with apache.
People said set static path in urls.py is slower than serve static files with apache. Don't know why though...

Staticfiles doesn't do anything when DEBUG=False. You need to serve those files with apache. Staticfiles has the ability to collect the files to one spot for you to make it easy, then you use some apache magic (assuming here since you didn't specify) to have apache intercept those requests and serve the static files for you.
Alias /robots.txt /home/username/Python/project/site_media/static/robots.txt
Alias /favicon.ico /home/username/Python/project/site_media/static/favicon.ico
Alias /static/ /home/username/Python/project/site_media/static/
I don't remember if it is buildstatic, build_static, collectstatic or collect_static to copy those files from your development stop to your deployment spot, but these variables control how staticfiles does its magic
# Absolute path to the directory that holds static files like app media.
# Example: "/home/media/media.lawrence.com/apps/"
STATIC_ROOT = os.path.join(PROJECT_ROOT, "site_media", "static")
# URL that handles the static files like app media.
# Example: "http://media.lawrence.com"
STATIC_URL = "/static/"
# Additional directories which hold static files
STATICFILES_DIRS = [
os.path.join(PROJECT_ROOT, "static"),
os.path.join(PROJECT_ROOT, "media"),
]
This assumes your static files are in the static folder of your project, and you want to serve them from the site_media folder.

I also move between Windows and Linux for development. To get around the problem of absolute paths in settings.py, I use this function:
def map_path(directory_name):
return os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__),
'../' + directory_name).replace('\\', '/')
Which you can implement in this fashion:
STATICFILES_DIRS = (
map_path('static'),
)
This function is tailored for Django 1.4.x. You'll need to modify it slightly for Django 1.3.x. Hope that helps you out.

How do I display an image on my webpage in Django?

I want to display an image on my website. I've been looking through the Django documentation and the other posts on stackoverflow, but I haven't gotten this to work.
I have an image name 'under-construction.jpg'. It lives in the /home/di/mysite/myapp/static/images directory.
I have a template like this:
<img src="{{ STATIC_URL }}images/under_construction.jpg" alt="Hi!" />
in my views.py I have this:
def under_construction(request):
return render(request, 'under_construction.html')
In my settings.py, I have this:
STATIC_ROOT = ''
# URL prefix for static files.
# Example: "http://media.lawrence.com/static/"
STATIC_URL = '/static/'
# Additional locations of static files
STATICFILES_DIRS = (
# Put strings here, like "/home/html/static" or "C:/www/django/static".
# Always use forward slashes, even on Windows.
# Don't forget to use absolute paths, not relative paths.
'/home/di/mysite/myapp/static',
'/home/di/mysite/myapp/static/images',
)
I executed ./manage.py collectstatic and it put a lot of files in /home/di/mysite/admin and /home/di/mysite/images. What do I have to do get my image to show up?

All you need to do is edit settings.py to be as the 4 following points and create a new folder (static) in the same folder settings.py is located
in the folder static you can create another folder (images) in it you can put the (under_constructioon.jpg)
STATICFILES_DIRS = (os.path.join( os.path.dirname( __file__ ), 'static' ),)
STATICFILES_FINDERS = (
'django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.FileSystemFinder',
'django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.AppDirectoriesFinder',)
STATIC_URL = '/static/'
STATIC_ROOT = ''
after you're done with the prev. points you can write
<img src="{{ STATIC_URL }}images/under_construction.jpg" alt="Hi!" />

I have faced same problem displaying the static image. suffered a lot and spent a lot lot of time in this regard. So thought to share my settings.
settings.py
STATIC_ROOT = ''
STATIC_URL = '/static/'
ADMIN_MEDIA_PREFIX = '/static/admin/'
import os.path
STATICFILES_DIRS = (
"D:/temp/workspace/offeronline/media",
(os.path.join( os.path.dirname( __file__ ), 'static' )),
)
STATICFILES_FINDERS = (
'django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.FileSystemFinder',
'django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.AppDirectoriesFinder',
)
urls.py
from django.contrib.staticfiles.urls import staticfiles_urlpatterns
# ... the rest of your URLconf here ... and at the end of the file add the following line
urlpatterns += staticfiles_urlpatterns()
and finally added the following code to the template tag and it worked
<img src="{{ STATIC_URL }}images/i1.png" />

I have solved that problem like this.
STATIC_ROOT = '/path/to/project/static/'
STATIC_URL = '/static/'
STATICFILES_DIRS = (
)
Django will not directly get files directly even you do this. You need to link this static directory for each application of yours. Just go to the django app dir run following command..
cd /path/to/project/my_proj/my_app
ln -s /path/to/project/static/
This will work only in debug mod. You need to set DEBUG = true in settings.py file. This should work with django's development server.
Django won't serve any static file in production mod. You need to serve static files with web-server in production mod.
More information can be found here..

Django does support static files during development, You can use the django.views.static.serve() method in view to serve media files.
But using this method is inefficient and insecure for production setting.
for Production setting in Apache
https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.2/howto/deployment/modpython/#serving-media-files

set STATIC_ROOT = /path/to/copy/files/to
have you added
urlpatterns += patterns('django.contrib.staticfiles.views', url(r'^static/(?P<path>.*)$', 'serve'),
or you can also do this
from django.contrib.staticfiles.urls import staticfiles_urlpatterns
# ... the rest of your URLconf here ...
urlpatterns += staticfiles_urlpatterns()
and of course try not to server static files through django it does have some overhead instead configure your http server to serve them, assuming you have an http server (nginx is quite good).

Django static structure

I am trying to understand the static structure django 1.3 tries to pursue:
I have a Project with this structure:
Project
someapp
static
someapp
css
etcetera
models.py
views.py
urls.py
urls.py
manage.py
settings.py
Now I wish to overwrite the django admin.. So I have to set these settings in settings.py which I did like below (basepath is the shortcut path to the current directory):
# Absolute path to the directory static files should be collected to.
# Don't put anything in this directory yourself; store your static files
# in apps' "static/" subdirectories and in STATICFILES_DIRS.
# Example: "/home/media/media.lawrence.com/static/"
STATIC_ROOT = BASE_PATH+'/static/'
# URL prefix for static files.
# Example: "http://media.lawrence.com/static/"
STATIC_URL = '/static/'
# URL prefix for admin static files -- CSS, JavaScript and images.
# Make sure to use a trailing slash.
# Examples: "http://foo.com/static/admin/", "/static/admin/".
ADMIN_MEDIA_PREFIX = '/static/admin/'
# Additional locations of static files
STATICFILES_DIRS = (
# Put strings here, like "/home/html/static" or "C:/www/django/static".
# Always use forward slashes, even on Windows.
# Don't forget to use absolute paths, not relative paths.
)
If I use the manage.py command collectstatic, it collects all static files (including the admin files) in a directory 'static' as expected... (within the main project dir)
However it's content isn't served yet until I add that directory to the STATICFILES_DIRS tuple, however then I have to change the STATIC_ROOT directory setting because otherwise I'll get the error they cannot be the same...
I think I am overlooking the obvious because what I have to do to make it work seems redundant

For local development, try this structure
Project
Project (project directory with settings.py etc..)
stylesheets
someapp
static
base.css
With this in settings.py:
import os
ROOT_PATH = os.path.dirname(__file__)
STATIC_ROOT = os.path.join(ROOT_PATH, 'static')
STATIC_URL = '/static/'
STATICFILES_DIRS = (
os.path.join(ROOT_PATH, 'stylesheets'),
)
Run the local server with python manage.py runserver and go to http://localhost:8000/static/base.css
You should see the stylesheet.

STATICFILES_DIRS is a setting you use to declare non app-specific static files live in your project. STATIC_ROOT is where the static files get placed when they are collected.
From django's docs:
"Your project will probably also have static assets that aren’t tied to a particular app. The STATICFILES_DIRS setting is a tuple of filesystem directories to check when loading static files. It’s a search path that is by default empty. See the STATICFILES_DIRS docs how to extend this list of additional paths."
"Set the STATIC_ROOT setting to point to the filesystem path you'd like your static files collected to when you use the collectstatic management command."

How about:
STATICFILES_DIRS = (
# Put strings here, like "/home/html/static" or "C:/www/django/static".
# Always use forward slashes, even on Windows.
# Don't forget to use absolute paths, not relative paths.
STATIC_ROOT,
)