Views

Introduction

Views contain all the HTML that you’re application will use to render to the user. Unlike Django, views in Masonite are your HTML templates. All views are located inside the resources/templates directory.

All views are rendered with Jinja2 so we can use all the Jinja2 code you are used to. An example view looks like:

resources/templates/helloworld.html

<html>
  <body>
    <h1> Hello {{ 'world' }}</h1>
  </body>
</html>

Creating Views

Since all views are located in resources/templates, we can use simply create all of our views manually here or use our craft command tool. To make a view just run:

terminal

$ craft view hello

This will create a template under resources/templates/hello.html.

Calling Views

The View class is loaded into the container so we can retrieve it in our controller methods like so:

app/http/controllers/YourController.py

from masonite.view import View

def show(self, view: View):
    return view.render('dashboard')

This is exactly the same as using the helper function above. So if you choose to code more explicitly, the option is there for you.

If this looks weird to you or you are not sure how the container integrates with Masonite, make sure you read the Service Container documentation

Global Views

Some views may not reside in the resources/templates directory and may even reside in third party packages such as a dashboard package. We can locate these views by passing a / in front of our view.

For example as a use case we might pip install a package:

terminal

$ pip install package-dashboard

and then be directed or required to return one of their views:

app/http/controllers/YourController.py

def show(self, view: View):
    return view.render('/package/views/dashboard')

This will look inside the dashboard.views package for a dashboard.html file and return that. You can obviously pass in data as usual.

Caveats

It's important to note that if you are building a third party package that integrates with Masonite that you place any .html files inside a Python package instead of directly inside a module. For example, you should place .html files inside a file structure that looks like:

package/
  views/
    __init__.py
    index.html
    dashboard.html
setup.py
MANIFEST.in
...

ensuring there is a __init__.py file. This is a Jinja2 limitation that says that all templates should be located in packages.

Accessing a global view such as:

app/http/controllers/YourController.py

def show(self, view: View):
    return view.render('/package/dashboard')

will perform an absolute import for your Masonite project. For example it will locate:

app/
config/
databases/
...
package/
  dashboard.html

Or find the package in a completely separate third part module. So if you are making a package for Masonite then keep this in mind of where you should put your templates.

Passing Data to Views

Most of the time we’ll need to pass in data to our views. This data is passed in with a dictionary that contains a key which is the variable with the corresponding value. We can pass data to the function like so:

app/http/controllers/YourController.py

def show(self, view: View, request: Request):
    return view.render('dashboard', {'id': request.param('id')})

Remember that by passing in parameters like Request to the controller method, we can retrieve objects from the IOC container. Read more about the IOC container in the Service Container documentation.

This will send a variable named id to the view which can then be rendered like:

resources/templates/dashboard.html

<html>
  <body>
    <h1> {{ id }} </h1>
  </body>
</html>

View Syntax

Views use Jinja2 for it's template rendering. You can read about Jinja2 at the official documentation here.

Masonite also enables Jinja2 Line Statements by default which allows you to write syntax the normal way:

{% extends 'nav/base.html' %}

{% block content %}
    {% for element in variables %}
        {{ element }}
    {% endfor %}

    {% if some_variable %}
        {{ some_variable }}
    {% endif %}

{% endblock %}

Or using line statements with the @ character:

@extends 'nav/base.html'

@block content
    @for element in variables
        {{ element }}
    @endfor

    @if some_variable
        {{ some_variable }}
    @endif

@endblock

The choice is yours on what you would like to use but keep in mind that line statements need to use only that line. Nothing can be after after or before the line.

Adding Environments

This section requires knowledge of Service Providers and how the Service Container works. Be sure to read those documentation articles.

You can also add Jinja2 environments to the container which will be available for use in your views. This is typically done for third party packages such as Masonite Dashboard. You can extend views in a Service Provider in the boot method. Make sure the Service Provider has the wsgi attribute set to False. This way the specific Service Provider will not keep adding the environment on every request.

from masonite.view import View

wsgi = False

...

def boot(self, view: View):
    view.add_environment('dashboard/templates')

By default the environment will be added using the PackageLoader Jinja2 loader but you can explicitly set which loader you want to use:

from jinja2 import FileSystemLoader
from masonite.view import View
...
wsgi = False

...

def boot(self, view: View):
    view.add_environment('dashboard/templates', loader=FileSystemLoader)

The default loader of PackageLoader will work for most cases but if it doesn't work for your use case, you may need to change the Jinja2 loader type.

Using Dot Notation

If using a / doesn't seem as clean to you, you can also optionally use dots:

def show(self, view: View):
    view.render('dashboard.user.show')

if you want to use a global view you still need to use the first /:

def show(self, view: View):
    view.render('/dashboard.user.show')

Helpers

There are quite a few built in helpers in your views. Here is an extensive list of all view helpers:

Request

You can get the request class:

<p> Path: {{ request().path }} </p>

Static

You can get the location of static assets:

If you have a configuration file like this:

config/storage.py

....
's3': {
  's3_client': 'sIS8shn...'
  ...
  'location': 'https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/bucket'
  },
....

...
<img src="{{ static('s3', 'profile.jpg') }}" alt="profile">
...

this will render:

<img src="https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/bucket/profile.jpg" alt="profile">

CSRF Field

You can create a CSRF token hidden field to be used with forms:

<form action="/some/url" method="POST">
    {{ csrf_field }}
    <input ..>
</form>

CSRF Token

You can get only the token that generates. This is useful for JS frontends where you need to pass a CSRF token to the backend for an AJAX call

<p> Token: {{ csrf_token }} </p>

Current User

You can also get the current authenticated user. This is the same as doing request.user().

<p> User: {{ auth().email }} </p>

Request Method

On forms you can typically only have either a GET or a POST because of the nature of html. With Masonite you can use a helper to submit forms with PUT or DELETE

<form action="/some/url" method="POST">
    {{ request_method('PUT') }}
    <input ..>
</form>

This will now submit this form as a PUT request.

Route

You can get a route by it's name by using this method:

<form action="{{ route('route.name') }}" method="POST">
    ..
</form>

If your route contains variables you need to pass then you can supply a dictionary as the second argument.

<form action="{{ route('route.name', {'id': 1}) }}" method="POST">
    ..
</form>

or a list:

<form action="{{ route('route.name', [1]) }}" method="POST">
    ..
</form>

Another cool feature is that if the current route already contains the correct dictionary then you do not have to pass a second parameter. For example if you have a 2 routes like:

Get('/dashboard/@id', 'Controller@show').name('dashboard.show'),
Get('/dashhboard/@id/users', 'Controller@users').name('dashhboard.users')

If you are accessing these 2 routes then the @id parameter will be stored on the user object. So instead of doing this:

<form action="{{ route('dashboard.users', {'id': 1}) }}" method="POST">
    ..
</form>

You can just leave it out completely since the id key is already stored on the request object:

<form action="{{ route('dashboard.users') }}" method="POST">
    ..
</form>

Back

This is useful for redirecting back to the previous page. If you supply this helper then the request.back() method will go to this endpoint. It's typically good to use this to go back to a page after a form is submitted with errors:

<form action="/some/url" method="POST">
    {{ back(request().path) }}
</form>

Now when a form is submitted and you want to send the user back then in your controller you just have to do:

def show(self, request: Request):
    # Some failed validation
    return request.back()

Session

You can access the session here:

<p> Error: {{ session().get('error') }} </p>

Learn more about session in the Session documentation.

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Last updated 5 years ago