Packaging components

[mikko-ahonen]

I want to share code I have developed for Django. The typical method of sharing with Django is an app that can be included in the project.

The app I have been developing contains both regular views as well as django components used by these views.

How would you package it so it would be convenient for users? Is there a way for example to put components inside an app?

[JuroOravec]

Hey @mikko-ahonen, coincidentally, I was doing that just yesterday and today! Have a look at https://github.com/JuroOravec/alpinui/tree/main/packages/alpinui-django.

How to:

1. I defined the components inside the <my_app>/templates directory.
2. All components are "single-file components" (SFC), meaning that I've inlined the HTML and CSS files, so there are no non-python dependencies.
3. I imported the components files inside the ready() hook in apps.py, so the components are registered when user install the app with INSTALLED_APPS.
4. I've built the distribution wheel using the same command as used in django-components:

   python -m build --sdist --wheel --outdir dist/ .

5. I used twine to publish to PyPI (See Python user guide)

   twine upload --repository pypi dist/* -u __token__ -p <PyPI_TOKEN>

Notes:

• I haven't tried how things would work if I defined the components inside a separate components directory.
• The user of the package NEEDS to have installed and configured django_components.
• If you have the HTML/CSS/JS files separate, you may need to define MANIFEST.in to include those files with the distribution (see user guide). But I don't know if or how to then load those static files into Django.

[mikko-ahonen]

Thank you!