django-follow

.. figure:: https://secure.travis-ci.org/caffeinehit/django-follow.png :align: center :alt:

django-follow enables your users to follow any model in your Django application.

Installation:

::

pip install django-follow

Usage:

• Add follow to your INSTALLED_APPS

• Include follow.urls into your URLs if you plan on using the views:

  ::

  urlpatterns = patterns('',
      url('^', include('follow.urls')),
  )
  

• Register the models you want to be able to follow in your models.py files:

  ::

  from django.db import models
  from follow import utils
  
  class MyModel(models.Model):
      field = models.CharField(max_length = 255)
  

   utils.register(MyModel)

NOTE You must register your models before running syncdb or you will run into the issue described in django-follow/issues/16 <https://github.com/caffeinehit/django-follow/issues/16>_

Test

The repository includes a sample project and application that is configured to test django-follow.

Clone the repository and cd into the project folder:

::

cd example/
python manage.py test follow

API

Manager

-  ``Follow.objects.create(user, obj, **kwargs)``:
    Makes ``user`` follow ``obj``

-  ``Follow.objects.get_or_create(user, obj, **kwargs)``:
    Returns a tuple ``(Follow, bool)``

-  ``Follow.objects.is_following(user, obj)``:
    Returns ``bool``

-  ``Follow.objects.get_follows(model_or_object_or_queryset)``:
    Returns all the ``Follow`` objects associated with a certain model,
   object or queryset.

**Note on performance**

I advise against against using ``Follow.objects.is_following`` too often
in one request / response cycle on single objects. Use it on querysets
to avoid stacking up too many queries.

Utils
~~~~~

-  ``follow.utils.register(model, field_name, related_name, lookup_method_name)``:
    Registers ``model`` to django-follow.

-  ``follow.utils.follow(user, object)``:
    Makes ``user`` follow ``object``

-  ``follow.utils.unfollow(user, object)``:
    Makes ``user`` unfollow ``object``

-  ``follow.utils.toggle(user, object)``:
    Toggles ``user``'s follow status of ``object``

-  ``follow.utils.follow_url(user, object)``:
    Returns the right follow/unfollow URL for ``user`` and ``object``

-  ``follow.utils.follow_link(object)``:
    Returns the following URL for ``object``

-  ``follow.utils.unfollow_link(object)``:
    Returns the unfollowing URL for ``object``

Template Tags

django-follow ships a template tag that creates urls, a filter to check if a user follows an object and a template tag to render the follow form.

::

{% load follow_tags %}
{% follow_url object %}
{% request.user|is_following:object %}
{% follow_form object %}
{% follow_form object "your/custom/template.html" %}

• {% follow_url object %}: Returns the URL to either follow or unfollow the object, depending on whether request.user is already following the object.

• {% follow_url object other_user %}: Same as above - but instead of resolving for request.user it resolves for any user you pass in.

• {% request.user|is_following:object %}: Returns True/False if the user follows / does not follow the object.

• {% follow_form object %}: Renders a form to follow a given object.

• `{% follow_form object "your/custom/template.html" %}: Renders the form with a custom template.

Signals

django-follow provides two signals:

-  ``follow.signals.followed(sender, user, target, instance)``
-  ``follow.signals.unfollowed(sender, user, target, instance)``

To invoke a handler every time a ``User`` or ``Group`` object is
followed, do something along these lines:

::

    from django.contrib.auth.models import User
    from follow import signals

    def user_follow_handler(user, target, instance, **kwargs):
        send_mail("You were followed", "You have been followed", "no-reply@localhost", [target.email])

    def group_follow_handler(user, target, instance, **kwargs):
        send_mail("Group followed", "%s has followed your group" % user, "no-reply@localhost", [[u.email for u in target.user_set.all()]])

    signals.followed.connect(user_follow_handler, sender = User, dispatch_uid = 'follow.user')
    signals.followed.connect(group_follow_handler, sender = Group, dispatch_uid = 'follow.group')

This works vica versa with the unfollowed handler too.

**NOTE**

When handling ``follow.signals.unfollowed`` both ``user`` and/or
``target`` can be ``None``. Django's admin for example will first delete
the user resulting in ``instance.user`` to throw ``DoesNotExist``.
Beware.

Release Notes
-------------

v0.5 - *BACKWARDS INCOMPATIBLE*

-  The follow and unfollow views now only accept POST requests

v0.4 - *BACKWARDS INCOMPATIBLE*

-  Made the manager *a lot* lighter.
-  Removed ``Model.followers`` method
-  Added ``Model.get_follows`` method returning all the ``Follow``
   objects
-  Moved ``Follow.follower`` to ``Follow.user``
-  Replaced ``Follow.get_object`` method with read/writable
   ``Follow.target`` property
-  ``follow.util`` moved to ``follow.utils``
-  No more M2M following

--------------

`@flashingpumpkin <http://twitter.com/flashingpumpkin>`_