Django Endless Pagination¶

This application provides Twitter- and Digg-style pagination, with multiple and lazy pagination and optional Ajax support. It is devoted to implementing web pagination in very few steps.

The source code for this app is hosted at https://github.com/frankban/django-endless-pagination.

The Mercurial repository of this project is hosted at https://bitbucket.org/frankban/django-endless-pagination.

Getting started is easy!

Contents:

Changelog¶

Version 2.0¶

New feature: Python 3 support.

Django Endless Pagination now supports both Python 2 and Python 3. Dropped support for Python 2.5. See Getting started for the new list of requirements.

New feature: the JavaScript refactoring.

This version introduces a re-designed Ajax support for pagination. Ajax can now be enabled using a brand new jQuery plugin that can be found in static/endless_pagination/js/endless-pagination.js.

Usage:

{% block js %}
    {{ block.super }}
    <script src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-latest.js"></script>
    <script src="{{ STATIC_URL }}endless_pagination/js/endless-pagination.js"></script>
    <script>$.endlessPaginate();</script>
{% endblock %}

The last line in the block above enables Ajax requests to retrieve new pages for each pagination in the page. That’s basically the same as the old approach of loading the file endless.js. The new approach, however, is more jQuery-idiomatic, increases the flexibility of how objects can be paginated, implements some new features and also contains some bug fixes.

For backward compatibility, the application still includes the two JavaScript endless.js and endless_on_scroll.js files. However, please consider migrating as soon as possible: the old JavaScript files are deprecated, are no longer maintained, and don’t provide the new JavaScript features. Also note that the old Javascript files will not work if jQuery >= 1.9 is used.

New features include ability to paginate different objects with different options, precisely selecting what to bind, ability to register callbacks, support for pagination in chunks and much more.

Please refer to the JavaScript reference for a detailed overview of the new features and for instructions on how to migrate from the old JavaScript files to the new one.

New feature: the page_templates decorator also accepts a sequence of (template, key) pairs, functioning as a dict mapping templates and keys (still present), e.g.:

from endless_pagination.decorators import page_templates

@page_templates((
    ('myapp/entries_page.html', None),
    ('myapp/other_entries_page.html', 'other_entries_page'),
))
def entry_index():
    ...

This also supports serving different paginated objects with the same template.

New feature: ability to provide nested context variables in the paginate and lazy_paginate template tags, e.g.:

{% paginate entries.all as myentries %}

The code above is basically equivalent to:

{% with entries.all as myentries %}
    {% paginate myentries %}
{% endwith %}

In this case, and only in this case, the as argument is mandatory, and a TemplateSyntaxError will be raised if the variable name is missing.

New feature: the page list object returned by the get_pages template tag has been improved adding the following new methods:

{# whether the page list contains more than one page #}
{{ pages.paginated }}

{# the 1-based index of the first item on the current page #}
{{ pages.current_start_index }}

{# the 1-based index of the last item on the current page #}
{{ pages.current_end_index }}

{# the total number of objects, across all pages #}
{{ pages.total_count }}

{# the first page represented as an arrow #}
{{ pages.first_as_arrow }}

{# the last page represented as an arrow #}
{{ pages.last_as_arrow }}

In the arrow representation, the page label defaults to << for the first page and to >> for the last one. As a consequence, the labels of the previous and next pages are now single brackets, respectively < and >. First and last pages’ labels can be customized using settings.ENDLESS_PAGINATION_FIRST_LABEL and settings.ENDLESS_PAGINATION_LAST_LABEL: see Customization.

New feature: The sequence returned by the callable settings.ENDLESS_PAGINATION_PAGE_LIST_CALLABLE can now contain two new values:

‘first’: will display the first page as an arrow;
‘last’: will display the last page as an arrow.

The show_pages template tag documentation describes how to customize Digg-style pagination defining your own page list callable.

When using the default Digg-style pagination (i.e. when settings.ENDLESS_PAGINATION_PAGE_LIST_CALLABLE is set to None), it is possible to enable first / last page arrows by setting the new flag settings.ENDLESS_PAGINATION_DEFAULT_CALLABLE_ARROWS to True.

New feature: settings.ENDLESS_PAGINATION_PAGE_LIST_CALLABLE can now be either a callable or a dotted path to a callable, e.g.:

ENDLESS_PAGINATION_PAGE_LIST_CALLABLE = 'path.to.callable'

In addition to the default, endless_pagination.utils.get_page_numbers, an alternative implementation is now available: endless_pagination.utils.get_elastic_page_numbers. It adapts its output to the number of pages, making it arguably more usable when there are many of them. To enable it, add the following line to your settings.py:

ENDLESS_PAGINATION_PAGE_LIST_CALLABLE = (
    'endless_pagination.utils.get_elastic_page_numbers')

New feature: ability to create a development and testing environment (see Contributing).

New feature: in addition to the ability to provide a customized pagination URL as a context variable, the paginate and lazy_paginate tags now support hardcoded pagination URL endpoints, e.g.:

{% paginate 20 entries with "/mypage/" %}

New feature: ability to specify negative indexes as values for the starting from page argument of the paginate template tag.

When changing the default page, it is now possible to reference the last page (or the second last page, and so on) by using negative indexes, e.g:

{% paginate entries starting from page -1 %}

See Templatetags reference.

Documentation: general clean up.

Documentation: added a Contributing page. Have a look!

Documentation: included a comprehensive JavaScript reference.

Fix: endless_pagination.views.AjaxListView no longer subclasses django.views.generic.list.ListView. Instead, the base objects and mixins composing the final view are now defined by this app.

This change eliminates the ambiguity of having two separate pagination machineries in place: the Django Endless Pagination one and the built-in Django ListView one.

Fix: the using argument of paginate and lazy_paginate template tags now correctly handles querystring keys containing dashes, e.g.:

{% lazy_paginate entries using "entries-page" %}

Fix: replaced namespace endless_pagination.paginator with endless_pagination.paginators: the module contains more than one paginator classes.

Fix: in some corner cases, loading endless_pagination.models raised an ImproperlyConfigured error while trying to pre-load the templates.

Fix: replaced doctests with proper unittests. Improved the code coverage as a consequence. Also introduced integration tests exercising JavaScript, based on Selenium.

Fix: overall code lint and clean up.

Version 1.1¶

New feature: now it is possible to set the bottom margin used for pagination on scroll (default is 1 pixel).

For example, if you want the pagination on scroll to be activated when 20 pixels remain until the end of the page:

<script src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-latest.js"></script>
<script src="{{ STATIC_URL }}endless_pagination/js/endless.js"></script>
<script src="{{ STATIC_URL }}endless_pagination/js/endless_on_scroll.js"></script>

{# add the lines below #}
<script type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8">
    var endless_on_scroll_margin = 20;
</script>

New feature: added ability to avoid Ajax requests when multiple pagination is used.

A template for multiple pagination with Ajax support may look like this (see Multiple paginations in the same page):

{% block js %}
    {{ block.super }}
    <script src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-latest.js"></script>
    <script src="{{ STATIC_URL }}endless_pagination/js/endless.js"></script>
{% endblock %}

<h2>Entries:</h2>
<div class="endless_page_template">
    {% include "myapp/entries_page.html" %}
</div>

<h2>Other entries:</h2>
<div class="endless_page_template">
    {% include "myapp/other_entries_page.html" %}
</div>

But what if you need Ajax pagination for entries but not for other entries? You will only have to add a class named endless_page_skip to the page container element, e.g.:

<h2>Other entries:</h2>
<div class="endless_page_template endless_page_skip">
    {% include "myapp/other_entries_page.html" %}
</div>

New feature: implemented a class-based generic view allowing Ajax pagination of a list of objects (usually a queryset).

Intended as a substitution of django.views.generic.ListView, it recreates the behaviour of the page_template decorator.

For a complete explanation, see Generic views.

Fix: the page_template and page_templates decorators no longer hide the original view name and docstring (update_wrapper).

Fix: pagination on scroll now works on Firefox >= 4.

Fix: tests are now compatible with Django 1.3.

Getting started¶

Requirements¶

Python	>= 2.6 (or Python 3)
Django	>= 1.3
jQuery	>= 1.7

Installation¶

The Git repository can be cloned with this command:

git clone https://github.com/frankban/django-endless-pagination.git

If you like Mercurial, you can clone the application with this command:

hg clone https://bitbucket.org/frankban/django-endless-pagination

The endless_pagination package, included in the distribution, should be placed on the PYTHONPATH.

Otherwise you can just easy_install -Z django-endless-pagination or pip install django-endless-pagination.

Settings¶

Add the request context processor to your settings.py, e.g.:

from django.conf.global_settings import TEMPLATE_CONTEXT_PROCESSORS
TEMPLATE_CONTEXT_PROCESSORS += (
    'django.core.context_processors.request',
)

Add 'endless_pagination' to the INSTALLED_APPS to your settings.py.

See the Customization section for other settings.

Quickstart¶

Given a template like this:

{% for entry in entries %}
    {# your code to show the entry #}
{% endfor %}

you can use Digg-style pagination to display objects just by adding:

{% load endless %}

{% paginate entries %}
{% for entry in entries %}
    {# your code to show the entry #}
{% endfor %}
{% show_pages %}

Done.

This is just a basic example. To continue exploring all the Django Endless Pagination features, have a look at Twitter-style Pagination or Digg-style pagination.

Multiple paginations in the same page¶

Sometimes it is necessary to show different types of paginated objects in the same page. In this case we have to associate a different querystring key to every pagination.

Normally, the key used is the one specified in settings.ENDLESS_PAGINATION_PAGE_LABEL (see Customization), but in the case of multiple pagination the application provides a simple way to override the settings.

If you do not need Ajax, the only file you need to edit is the template. Here is an example with 2 different paginations (entries and other_entries) in the same page, but there is no limit to the number of different paginations in a page:

{% load endless %}

{% paginate entries %}
{% for entry in entries %}
    {# your code to show the entry #}
{% endfor %}
{% show_pages %}

{# "other_entries_page" is the new querystring key #}
{% paginate other_entries using "other_entries_page" %}
{% for entry in other_entries %}
    {# your code to show the entry #}
{% endfor %}
{% show_pages %}

The using argument of the paginate template tag allows you to choose the name of the querystring key used to track the page number. If not specified the system falls back to settings.ENDLESS_PAGINATION_PAGE_LABEL.

In the example above, the url http://example.com?page=2&other_entries_page=3 requests the second page of entries and the third page of other_entries.

The name of the querystring key can also be dinamically passed in the template context, e.g.:

{# page_variable is not surrounded by quotes #}
{% paginate other_entries using page_variable %}

You can use any style of pagination: show_pages, get_pages, show_more etc... (see Templatetags reference).

Adding Ajax for multiple pagination¶

Obviously each pagination needs a template for the page contents. Remember to box each page in a div with a class called endless_page_template, or to specify the container selector passing an option to $.endlessPaginate() as seen in Digg-style pagination and Ajax.

myapp/entry_index.html:

<h2>Entries:</h2>
<div class="endless_page_template">
    {% include "myapp/entries_page.html" %}
</div>

<h2>Other entries:</h2>
<div class="endless_page_template">
    {% include "myapp/other_entries_page.html" %}
</div>

{% block js %}
    {{ block.super }}
    <script src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-latest.js"></script>
    <script src="{{ STATIC_URL }}endless_pagination/js/endless-pagination.js"></script>
    <script>$.endlessPaginate();</script>
{% endblock %}

See the JavaScript reference for further details on how to use the included jQuery plugin.

myapp/entries_page.html:

{% load endless %}

{% paginate entries %}
{% for entry in entries %}
    {# your code to show the entry #}
{% endfor %}
{% show_pages %}

myapp/other_entries_page.html:

{% load endless %}

{% paginate other_entries using other_entries_page %}
{% for entry in other_entries %}
    {# your code to show the entry #}
{% endfor %}
{% show_pages %}

As seen before, the decorator page_template simplifies the management of Ajax requests in views. You must, however, map different paginations to different page templates.

You can chain decorator calls relating a template to the associated querystring key, e.g.:

from endless_pagination.decorators import page_template

@page_template('myapp/entries_page.html')
@page_template('myapp/other_entries_page.html', key='other_entries_page')
def entry_index(
        request, template='myapp/entry_index.html', extra_context=None):
    context = {
        'entries': Entry.objects.all(),
        'other_entries': OtherEntry.objects.all(),
    }
    if extra_context is not None:
        context.update(extra_context)
    return render_to_response(
        template, context, context_instance=RequestContext(request))

As seen in previous examples, if you do not specify the key kwarg in the decorator, then the page template is associated to the querystring key defined in the settings.

You can use the page_templates (note the trailing s) decorator in substitution of a decorator chain when you need multiple Ajax paginations. The previous example can be written as:

from endless_pagination.decorators import page_templates

@page_templates({
    'myapp/entries_page.html': None,
    'myapp/other_entries_page.html': 'other_entries_page',
})
def entry_index():
    ...

As seen, a dict object is passed to the page_templates decorator, mapping templates to querystring keys. Alternatively, you can also pass a sequence of (template, key) pairs, e.g.:

from endless_pagination.decorators import page_templates

@page_templates((
    ('myapp/entries_page.html', None),
    ('myapp/other_entries_page.html', 'other_entries_page'),
))
def entry_index():
    ...

This also supports serving different paginated objects with the same template.

Manually selecting what to bind¶

What if you need Ajax pagination only for entries and not for other entries? You can do this in a straightforward way using jQuery selectors, e.g.:

{% block js %}
    {{ block.super }}
    <script src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-latest.js"></script>
    <script src="{{ STATIC_URL }}endless_pagination/js/endless-pagination.js"></script>
    <script>$('#entries').endlessPaginate();</script>
{% endblock %}

The call to $(‘#entries’).endlessPaginate() applies Ajax pagination starting from the DOM node with id entries and to all sub-nodes. This means that other entries are left intact. Of course you can use any selector supported by jQuery.

Refer to the JavaScript reference for an explanation of other features like calling $.endlessPaginate() multiple times in order to customize the behavior of each pagination in a multiple pagination view.

Lazy pagination¶

Usually pagination requires hitting the database to get the total number of items to display. Lazy pagination avoids this select count query and results in a faster page load, with a disadvantage: you won’t know the total number of pages in advance.

For this reason it is better to use lazy pagination in conjunction with Twitter-style Pagination (e.g. using the show_more template tag).

In order to switch to lazy pagination you have to use the lazy_paginate template tag instead of the paginate one, e.g.:

{% load endless %}

{% lazy_paginate entries %}
{% for entry in entries %}
    {# your code to show the entry #}
{% endfor %}
{% show_more %}

The lazy_paginate tag can take all the args of the paginate one, with one exception: negative indexes can not be passed to the starting from page argument.

Different number of items on the first page¶

Sometimes you might want to show on the first page a different number of items than on subsequent pages (e.g. in a movie detail page you want to show 4 images of the movie as a reminder, making the user click to see the next 20 images). To achieve this, use the paginate or lazy_paginate tags with comma separated first page and per page arguments, e.g.:

{% load endless %}

{% lazy_paginate 4,20 entries %}
{% for entry in entries %}
    {# your code to show the entry #}
{% endfor %}
{% show_more %}

This code will display 4 entries on the first page and 20 entries on the other pages.

Of course the first page and per page arguments can be passed as template variables, e.g.:

{% lazy_paginate first_page,per_page entries %}

Getting the current page number¶

In the template¶

You can get and display the current page number in the template using the show_current_number template tag, e.g.:

{% show_current_number %}

This call will display the current page number, but you can also insert the value in the context as a template variable:

{% show_current_number as page_number %}
{{ page_number }}

See the show_current_number refrence for more information on accepted arguments.

In the view¶

If you need to get the current page number in the view, you can use an utility function called get_page_number_from_request, e.g.:

from endless_pagination import utils

page = utils.get_page_number_from_request(request)

If you are using multiple pagination, or you have changed the default querystring for pagination, you can pass the querystring key as an optional argument:

page = utils.get_page_number_from_request(request, querystring_key=mykey)

If the page number is not present in the request, by default 1 is returned. You can change this behaviour using:

page = utils.get_page_number_from_request(request, default=3)

Templatetags reference¶

paginate¶

Usage:

{% paginate entries %}

After this call, the entries variable in the template context is replaced by only the entries of the current page.

You can also keep your entries original variable (usually a queryset) and add to the context another name that refers to entries of the current page, e.g.:

{% paginate entries as page_entries %}

The as argument is also useful when a nested context variable is provided as queryset. In this case, and only in this case, the resulting variable name is mandatory, e.g.:

{% paginate entries.all as entries %}

The number of paginated entries is taken from settings, but you can override the default locally, e.g.:

{% paginate 20 entries %}

Of course you can mix it all:

{% paginate 20 entries as paginated_entries %}

By default, the first page is displayed the first time you load the page, but you can change this, e.g.:

{% paginate entries starting from page 3 %}

When changing the default page, it is also possible to reference the last page (or the second last page, and so on) by using negative indexes, e.g:

{% paginate entries starting from page -1 %}

This can be also achieved using a template variable that was passed to the context, e.g.:

{% paginate entries starting from page page_number %}

If the passed page number does not exist, the first page is displayed. Note that negative indexes are specific to the {% paginate %} tag: this feature cannot be used when contents are lazy paginated (see lazy_paginate below).

If you have multiple paginations in the same page, you can change the querydict key for the single pagination, e.g.:

{% paginate entries using article_page %}

In this case article_page is intended to be a context variable, but you can hardcode the key using quotes, e.g.:

{% paginate entries using 'articles_at_page' %}

Again, you can mix it all (the order of arguments is important):

{% paginate 20 entries starting from page 3 using page_key as paginated_entries %}

Additionally you can pass a path to be used for the pagination:

{% paginate 20 entries using page_key with pagination_url as paginated_entries %}

This way you can easily create views acting as API endpoints, and point your Ajax calls to that API. In this case pagination_url is considered a context variable, but it is also possible to hardcode the URL, e.g.:

{% paginate 20 entries with "/mypage/" %}

If you want the first page to contain a different number of items than subsequent pages, you can separate the two values with a comma, e.g. if you want 3 items on the first page and 10 on other pages:

{% paginate 3,10 entries %}

You must use this tag before calling the show_more, get_pages or show_pages ones.

lazy_paginate¶

Paginate objects without hitting the database with a select count query. Usually pagination requires hitting the database to get the total number of items to display. Lazy pagination avoids this select count query and results in a faster page load, with a disadvantage: you won’t know the total number of pages in advance.

Use this in the same way as paginate tag when you are not interested in the total number of pages.

The lazy_paginate tag can take all the args of the paginate one, with one exception: negative indexes can not be passed to the starting from page argument.

show_more¶

Show the link to get the next page in a Twitter-style Pagination. Usage:

{% show_more %}

Alternatively you can override the label passed to the default template:

{% show_more "even more" %}

You can override the loading text too:

{% show_more "even more" "working" %}

Must be called after paginate or lazy_paginate.

get_pages¶

Usage:

{% get_pages %}

This is mostly used for Digg-style pagination.

This call inserts in the template context a pages variable, as a sequence of page links. You can use pages in different ways:

just print pages and you will get Digg-style pagination displayed:

{{ pages }}

display pages count:

{{ pages|length }}

check if the page list contains more than one page:

{{ pages.paginated }}
{# the following is equivalent #}
{{ pages|length > 1 }}

get a specific page:

{# the current selected page #}
{{ pages.current }}

{# the first page #}
{{ pages.first }}

{# the last page #}
{{ pages.last }}

{# the previous page (or nothing if you are on first page) #}
{{ pages.previous }}

{# the next page (or nothing if you are in last page) #}
{{ pages.next }}

{# the third page #}
{{ pages.3 }}
{# this means page.1 is the same as page.first #}

{# the 1-based index of the first item on the current page #}
{{ pages.current_start_index }}

{# the 1-based index of the last item on the current page #}
{{ pages.current_end_index }}

{# the total number of objects, across all pages #}
{{ pages.total_count }}

{# the first page represented as an arrow #}
{{ pages.first_as_arrow }}

{# the last page represented as an arrow #}
{{ pages.last_as_arrow }}

iterate over pages to get all pages:

{% for page in pages %}
    {# display page link #}
    {{ page }}

    {# the page url (beginning with "?") #}
    {{ page.url }}

    {# the page path #}
    {{ page.path }}

    {# the page number #}
    {{ page.number }}

    {# a string representing the page (commonly the page number) #}
    {{ page.label }}

    {# check if the page is the current one #}
    {{ page.is_current }}

    {# check if the page is the first one #}
    {{ page.is_first }}

    {# check if the page is the last one #}
    {{ page.is_last }}
{% endfor %}

You can change the variable name, e.g.:

{% get_pages as page_links %}

This must be called after paginate or lazy_paginate.

show_pages¶

Show page links. Usage:

{% show_pages %}

It is just a shortcut for:

{% get_pages %}
{{ pages }}

You can set ENDLESS_PAGINATION_PAGE_LIST_CALLABLE in your settings.py to a callable used to customize the pages that are displayed. ENDLESS_PAGINATION_PAGE_LIST_CALLABLE can also be a dotted path representing a callable, e.g.:

ENDLESS_PAGINATION_PAGE_LIST_CALLABLE = 'path.to.callable'

The callable takes the current page number and the total number of pages, and must return a sequence of page numbers that will be displayed.

The sequence can contain other values:

‘previous’: will display the previous page in that position;
‘next’: will display the next page in that position;
‘first’: will display the first page as an arrow;
‘last’: will display the last page as an arrow;
None: a separator will be displayed in that position.

Here is an example of a custom callable that displays the previous page, then the first page, then a separator, then the current page, and finally the last page:

def get_page_numbers(current_page, num_pages):
    return ('previous', 1, None, current_page, 'last')

If ENDLESS_PAGINATION_PAGE_LIST_CALLABLE is None the internal callable endless_pagination.utils.get_page_numbers is used, generating a Digg-style pagination.

An alternative implementation is available: endless_pagination.utils.get_elastic_page_numbers: it adapts its output to the number of pages, making it arguably more usable when there are many of them.

This must be called after paginate or lazy_paginate.

show_current_number¶

Show the current page number, or insert it in the context.

This tag can for example be useful to change the page title according to the current page number.

To just show current page number:

{% show_current_number %}

If you use multiple paginations in the same page, you can get the page number for a specific pagination using the querystring key, e.g.:

{% show_current_number using mykey %}

The default page when no querystring is specified is 1. If you changed it in the paginate template tag, you have to call show_current_number according to your choice, e.g.:

{% show_current_number starting from page 3 %}

This can be also achieved using a template variable you passed to the context, e.g.:

{% show_current_number starting from page page_number %}

You can of course mix it all (the order of arguments is important):

{% show_current_number starting from page 3 using mykey %}

If you want to insert the current page number in the context, without actually displaying it in the template, use the as argument, i.e.:

{% show_current_number as page_number %}
{% show_current_number starting from page 3 using mykey as page_number %}

JavaScript reference¶

For each type of pagination it is possible to enable Ajax so that the requested page is loaded using an asynchronous request to the server. This is especially important for Twitter-style Pagination and endless pagination on scroll, but Digg-style pagination can also take advantage of this technique.

Activating Ajax support¶

Ajax support is activated linking jQuery and the endless-pagination.js file included in this app. It is then possible to use the $.endlessPaginate() jQuery plugin to enable Ajax pagination, e.g.:

<h2>Entries:</h2>
<div class="endless_page_template">
    {% include page_template %}
</div>

{% block js %}
    {{ block.super }}
    <script src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-latest.js"></script>
    <script src="{{ STATIC_URL }}endless_pagination/js/endless-pagination.js"></script>
    <script>$.endlessPaginate();</script>
{% endblock %}

This example assumes that you separated the fragment containing the single page (page_tempate) from the main template (the code snipper above). More on this in Twitter-style Pagination and Digg-style pagination.

The $.endlessPaginate() call activates Ajax for each pagination present in the page.

Pagination on scroll¶

If you want new items to load when the user scrolls down the browser page, you can use the pagination on scroll feature: just set the paginateOnScroll option of $.endlessPaginate() to true, e.g.:

<h2>Entries:</h2>
<div class="endless_page_template">
    {% include page_template %}
</div>

{% block js %}
    {{ block.super }}
    <script src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-latest.js"></script>
    <script src="{{ STATIC_URL }}endless_pagination/js/endless-pagination.js"></script>
    <script>$.endlessPaginate({paginateOnScroll: true});</script>
{% endblock %}

That’s all. See the Templatetags reference page to improve usage of the included templatetags.

It is possible to set the bottom margin used for pagination on scroll (default is 1 pixel). For example, if you want the pagination on scroll to be activated when 20 pixels remain to the end of the page:

<h2>Entries:</h2>
<div class="endless_page_template">
    {% include page_template %}
</div>

{% block js %}
    {{ block.super }}
    <script src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-latest.js"></script>
    <script src="{{ STATIC_URL }}endless_pagination/js/endless-pagination.js"></script>
    <script>
        $.endlessPaginate({
            paginateOnScroll: true,
            paginateOnScrollMargin: 20
        });
    </script>
{% endblock %}

Attaching callbacks¶

It is possible to customize the behavior of JavaScript pagination by attaching callbacks to $.endlessPaginate(), called when the following events are fired:

onClick: the user clicks on a page link;
onCompleted: the new page is fully loaded and inserted in the DOM.

The context of both callbacks is the clicked link fragment: in other words, inside the callbacks, this will be the HTML fragment representing the clicked link, e.g.:

<h2>Entries:</h2>
<div class="endless_page_template">
    {% include page_template %}
</div>

{% block js %}
    {{ block.super }}
    <script src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-latest.js"></script>
    <script src="{{ STATIC_URL }}endless_pagination/js/endless-pagination.js"></script>
    <script>
        $.endlessPaginate({
            onClick: function() {
                console.log('Label:', $(this).text());
            }
        });
    </script>
{% endblock %}

Both callbacks also receive a context argument containing information about the requested page:

context.url: the requested URL;
context.key: the querystring key used to retrieve the requested contents.

If the onClick callback returns false, the pagination process is stopped, the Ajax request is not performed and the onCompleted callback never called.

The onCompleted callbacks also receives a second argument: the data returned by the server. Basically this is the HTML fragment representing the new requested page.

To wrap it up, here is an example showing the callbacks’ signatures:

<h2>Entries:</h2>
<div class="endless_page_template">
    {% include page_template %}
</div>

{% block js %}
    {{ block.super }}
    <script src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-latest.js"></script>
    <script src="{{ STATIC_URL }}endless_pagination/js/endless-pagination.js"></script>
    <script>
        $.endlessPaginate({
            onClick: function(context) {
                console.log('Label:', $(this).text());
                console.log('URL:', context.url);
                console.log('Querystring key:', context.key);
                if (forbidden) {  // to be defined...
                    return false;
                }
            },
            onCompleted: function(context, fragment) {
                console.log('Label:', $(this).text());
                console.log('URL:', context.url);
                console.log('Querystring key:', context.key);
                console.log('Fragment:', fragment);
            }
        });
    </script>
{% endblock %}

Manually selecting what to bind¶

As seen above, $.endlessPaginate() enables Ajax support for each pagination in the page. But assuming you are using Multiple paginations in the same page, e.g.:

<h2>Entries:</h2>
<div id="entries" class="endless_page_template">
    {% include "myapp/entries_page.html" %}
</div>

<h2>Other entries:</h2>
<div id="other-entries" class="endless_page_template">
    {% include "myapp/other_entries_page.html" %}
</div>

{% block js %}
    {{ block.super }}
    <script src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-latest.js"></script>
    <script src="{{ STATIC_URL }}endless_pagination/js/endless-pagination.js"></script>
    <script>$.endlessPaginate();</script>
{% endblock %}

What if you need Ajax pagination only for entries and not for other entries? You can do this in a straightforward way using jQuery selectors, e.g.:

{% block js %}
    {{ block.super }}
    <script src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-latest.js"></script>
    <script src="{{ STATIC_URL }}endless_pagination/js/endless-pagination.js"></script>
    <script>$('#entries').endlessPaginate();</script>
{% endblock %}

The call to $(‘#entries’).endlessPaginate() applies Ajax pagination starting from the DOM node with id entries and to all sub-nodes. This means that other entries are left intact. Of course you can use any selector supported by jQuery.

At this point, you might have already guessed that $.endlessPaginate() is just an alias for $(‘body’).endlessPaginate().

Customize each pagination¶

You can also call $.endlessPaginate() multiple times if you want to customize the behavior of each pagination. E.g. if you need to register a callback for entries but not for other entries:

<h2>Entries:</h2>
<div id="entries" class="endless_page_template">
    {% include "myapp/entries_page.html" %}
</div>

<h2>Other entries:</h2>
<div id="other-entries" class="endless_page_template">
    {% include "myapp/other_entries_page.html" %}
</div>

{% block js %}
    {{ block.super }}
    <script src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-latest.js"></script>
    <script src="{{ STATIC_URL }}endless_pagination/js/endless-pagination.js"></script>
    <script>
        $('#entries').endlessPaginate({
            onCompleted: function(data) {
                console.log('New entries loaded.');
            }
        });
        $('#other-entries').endlessPaginate();
    </script>
{% endblock %}

Selectors¶

Each time $.endlessPaginate() is used, several JavaScript selectors are used to select DOM nodes. Here is a list of them all:

containerSelector: ‘.endless_container’ (Twitter-style pagination container selector);
loadingSelector: ‘.endless_loading’ - (Twitter-style pagination loading selector);
moreSelector: ‘a.endless_more’ - (Twitter-style pagination link selector);
pageSelector: ‘.endless_page_template’ (Digg-style pagination page template selector);
pagesSelector: ‘a.endless_page_link’ (Digg-style pagination link selector).

An example can better explain the meaning of the selectors above. Assume you have a Digg-style pagination like the following:

<h2>Entries:</h2>
<div id="entries" class="endless_page_template">
    {% include "myapp/entries_page.html" %}
</div>

{% block js %}
    {{ block.super }}
    <script src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-latest.js"></script>
    <script src="{{ STATIC_URL }}endless_pagination/js/endless-pagination.js"></script>
    <script>
        $('#entries').endlessPaginate();
    </script>
{% endblock %}

Here the #entries node is selected and Digg-style pagination is applied. Digg-style needs to know which DOM node will be updated with new contents, and in this case it’s the same node we selected, because we added the endless_page_template class to that node, and .endless_page_template is the selector used by default. However, the following example is equivalent and does not involve adding another class to the container:

<h2>Entries:</h2>
<div id="entries">
    {% include "myapp/entries_page.html" %}
</div>

{% block js %}
    {{ block.super }}
    <script src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-latest.js"></script>
    <script src="{{ STATIC_URL }}endless_pagination/js/endless-pagination.js"></script>
    <script>
        $('#entries').endlessPaginate({
            pageSelector: '#entries'
        });
    </script>
{% endblock %}

On scroll pagination using chunks¶

Sometimes, when using on scroll pagination, you may want to still display the show more link after each N pages. In Django Endless Pagination this is called chunk size. For instance, a chunk size of 5 means that a show more link is displayed after page 5 is loaded, then after page 10, then after page 15 and so on. Activating this functionality is straightforward, just use the paginateOnScrollChunkSize option:

{% block js %}
    {{ block.super }}
    <script src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-latest.js"></script>
    <script src="{{ STATIC_URL }}endless_pagination/js/endless-pagination.js"></script>
    <script>
        $.endlessPaginate({
            paginateOnScroll: true,
            paginateOnScrollChunkSize: 5
        });
    </script>
{% endblock %}

Migrate from version 1.1 to 2.0¶

Django Endless Pagination v2.0 introduces changes in how Ajax pagination is handled by JavaScript. These changes are discussed in this document and in the Changelog.

The JavaScript code now lives in a file named endless-pagination.js. For backward compatibility, the application still includes the two JavaScript files endless.js and endless_on_scroll.js. However, please consider migrating as soon as possible: the old JavaScript files are deprecated, are no longer maintained, and don’t provide the new JavaScript features.

Instructions on how to migrate from the old version to the new one follow.

Basic migration¶

Before:

<h2>Entries:</h2>
{% include page_template %}

{% block js %}
    {{ block.super }}
    <script src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-latest.js"></script>
    <script src="{{ STATIC_URL }}endless_pagination/js/endless.js"></script>
{% endblock %}

Now:

<h2>Entries:</h2>
{% include page_template %}

{% block js %}
    {{ block.super }}
    <script src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-latest.js"></script>
    <script src="{{ STATIC_URL }}endless_pagination/js/endless-pagination.js"></script>
    <script>$.endlessPaginate();</script>
{% endblock %}

Pagination on scroll¶

Before:

<h2>Entries:</h2>
{% include page_template %}

{% block js %}
    {{ block.super }}
    <script src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-latest.js"></script>
    <script src="{{ STATIC_URL }}endless_pagination/js/endless.js"></script>
    <script src="{{ STATIC_URL }}endless_pagination/js/endless_on_scroll.js"></script>
{% endblock %}

Now:

<h2>Entries:</h2>
{% include page_template %}

{% block js %}
    {{ block.super }}
    <script src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-latest.js"></script>
    <script src="{{ STATIC_URL }}endless_pagination/js/endless-pagination.js"></script>
    <script>
        $.endlessPaginate({paginateOnScroll: true});
    </script>
{% endblock %}

Pagination on scroll with customized bottom margin¶

Before:

<h2>Entries:</h2>
{% include page_template %}

{% block js %}
    {{ block.super }}
    <script src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-latest.js"></script>
    <script src="{{ STATIC_URL }}endless_pagination/js/endless.js"></script>
    <script src="{{ STATIC_URL }}endless_pagination/js/endless_on_scroll.js"></script>
    <script>
        var endless_on_scroll_margin = 20;
    </script>
{% endblock %}

Now:

<h2>Entries:</h2>
{% include page_template %}

{% block js %}
    {{ block.super }}
    <script src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-latest.js"></script>
    <script src="{{ STATIC_URL }}endless_pagination/js/endless-pagination.js"></script>
    <script>
        $.endlessPaginate({
            paginateOnScroll: true,
            paginateOnScrollMargin: 20
        });
    </script>
{% endblock %}

Avoid enabling Ajax on one or more paginations¶

Before:

<h2>Other entries:</h2>
<div class="endless_page_template endless_page_skip">
    {% include "myapp/other_entries_page.html" %}
</div>

{% block js %}
    {{ block.super }}
    <script src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-latest.js"></script>
    <script src="{{ STATIC_URL }}endless_pagination/js/endless.js"></script>
{% endblock %}

Now:

<h2>Other entries:</h2>
<div class="endless_page_template endless_page_skip">
    {% include "myapp/other_entries_page.html" %}
</div>

{% block js %}
    {{ block.super }}
    <script src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-latest.js"></script>
    <script src="{{ STATIC_URL }}endless_pagination/js/endless-pagination.js"></script>
    <script>$('not:(.endless_page_skip)').endlessPaginate();</script>
{% endblock %}

In this last example, activating Ajax just where you want might be preferred over excluding nodes.

Generic views¶

Django 1.3 introduced class-based generic views (see https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.3/topics/class-based-views/).

This application provides a customized class-based view, similar to django.views.generic.ListView, that allows Ajax pagination of a list of objects (usually a queryset).

AjaxListView reference¶

class endless_pagination.views.AjaxListView(django.views.generic.ListView)¶

A class based view, similar to django.views.generic.ListView, that allows Ajax pagination of a list of objects.

You can use this class based view in place of ListView in order to recreate the behaviour of the page_template decorator.

For instance, assume you have this code (taken from Django docs):

from django.conf.urls.defaults import *
from django.views.generic import ListView
from books.models import Publisher

urlpatterns = patterns('',
    (r'^publishers/$', ListView.as_view(model=Publisher)),
)

You want to Ajax paginate publishers, so, as seen, you need to switch the template if the request is Ajax and put the page template into the context as a variable named page_template.

This is straightforward, you only need to replace the view class, e.g.:

from django.conf.urls.defaults import *
from books.models import Publisher

from endless_pagination.views import AjaxListView

urlpatterns = patterns('',
    (r'^publishers/$', AjaxListView.as_view(model=Publisher)),
)

NOTE: Django >= 1.3 is required to use this view.

key¶: the querystring key used for the current pagination (default: settings.ENDLESS_PAGINATION_PAGE_LABEL)

page_template¶: the template used for the paginated objects

page_template_suffix¶: the template suffix used for autogenerated page_template name (when not given, default=’_page’)

get_context_data(self, **kwargs)¶

Adds the page_template variable in the context.

If the page_template is not given as a kwarg of the as_view method then it is invented using app label, model name (obviously if the list is a queryset), self.template_name_suffix and self.page_template_suffix.

For instance, if the list is a queryset of blog.Entry, the template will be blog/entry_list_page.html.

get_template_names(self)¶: Switch the templates for Ajax requests.

get_page_template(self, **kwargs)¶: Only called if page_template is not given as a kwarg of self.as_view.

Customization¶

Settings¶

You can customize the application using settings.py.

Name	Default	Description
`ENDLESS_PAGINATION_PER_PAGE`	10	How many objects are normally displayed in a page (overwriteable by templatetag).
`ENDLESS_PAGINATION_PAGE_LABEL`	‘page’	The querystring key of the page number (e.g. `http://example.com?page=2`).
`ENDLESS_PAGINATION_ORPHANS`	0	See Django Paginator definition of orphans.
`ENDLESS_PAGINATION_LOADING`	‘loading’	If you use the default `show_more` template, here you can customize the content of the loader hidden element. HTML is safe here, e.g. you can show your pretty animated GIF `ENDLESS_PAGINATION_LOADING = """<img src="/static/img/loader.gif" alt="loading" />"""`.
`ENDLESS_PAGINATION_PREVIOUS_LABEL`	‘<’	Default label for the previous page link.
`ENDLESS_PAGINATION_NEXT_LABEL`	‘>’	Default label for the next page link.
`ENDLESS_PAGINATION_FIRST_LABEL`	‘<<’	Default label for the first page link.
`ENDLESS_PAGINATION_LAST_LABEL`	‘>>’	Default label for the last page link.
`ENDLESS_PAGINATION_ADD_NOFOLLOW`	False	Set to True if your SEO alchemist wants search engines not to follow pagination links.
`ENDLESS_PAGINATION_PAGE_LIST_CALLABLE`	None	Callable (or dotted path to a callable) that returns pages to be displayed. If None, a default callable is used; that produces Digg-style pagination. The applicationt provides also a callable producing elastic pagination: `endless_pagination.utils.get_elastic_page_numbers`. It adapts its output to the number of pages, making it arguably more usable when there are many of them. See Templatetags reference for information about writing custom callables.
`ENDLESS_PAGINATION_DEFAULT_CALLABLE_EXTREMES`	3	Deafult number of extremes displayed when Digg-style pagination is used with the default callable.
`ENDLESS_PAGINATION_DEFAULT_CALLABLE_AROUNDS`	2	Deafult number of arounds displayed when Digg-style pagination is used with the default callable.
`ENDLESS_PAGINATION_DEFAULT_CALLABLE_ARROWS`	False	Whether or not the first and last pages arrows are displayed when Digg-style pagination is used with the default callable.
`ENDLESS_PAGINATION_TEMPLATE_VARNAME`	‘template’	Template variable name used by the `page_template` decorator. You can change this value if you are going to decorate generic views using a different variable name for the template (e.g. `template_name`).

Templates and CSS¶

You can override the default template for show_more templatetag following some rules:

more link is shown only if the variable querystring is not False;
the container (most external html element) class is endless_container;
the more link and the loader hidden element live inside the container;
the more link class is endless_more;
the more link rel attribute is {{ querystring_key }};
the loader hidden element class is endless_loading.

Contributing¶

Here are the steps needed to set up a development and testing environment.

Creating a development environment¶

The development environment is created in a virtualenv. The environment creation requires the make and virtualenv programs to be installed.

To install make under Debian/Ubuntu:

$ sudo apt-get install build-essential

Under Mac OS/X, make is available as part of XCode.

To install virtualenv:

$ sudo pip install virtualenv

At this point, from the root of this branch, run the command:

$ make

This command will create a .venv directory in the branch root, ignored by DVCSes, containing the development virtual environment with all the dependencies.

Testing the application¶

Run the tests:

$ make test

The command above also runs all the available integration tests. They use Selenium and require Firefox to be installed. To avoid executing integration tests, define the environment variable SKIP_SELENIUM, e.g.:

$ make test SKIP_SELENIUM=1

Integration tests are excluded by default when using Python 3. The test suite requires Python >= 2.6.1.

Run the tests and lint/pep8 checks:

$ make check

Again, to exclude integration tests:

$ make check SKIP_SELENIUM=1

Debugging¶

Run the Django shell (Python interpreter):

$ make shell

Run the Django development server for manual testing:

$ make server

After executing the command above, it is possible to navigate the testing project going to <http://localhost:8000>.

See all the available make targets, including info on how to create a Python 3 development environment:

$ make help

Thanks for contributing, and have fun!

Source code and contacts¶

Repository and bugs¶

The source code for this app is hosted on https://github.com/frankban/django-endless-pagination.

The Mercurial repository of this project is hosted on https://bitbucket.org/frankban/django-endless-pagination.

To file bugs and requests, please use https://github.com/frankban/django-endless-pagination/issues.

Contacts¶

Francesco Banconi

Email: frankban at gmail.com
IRC: frankban@freenode

Thanks¶

This application was initially inspired by the excellent tool django-pagination (see https://github.com/ericflo/django-pagination).

Thanks to Jannis Leidel for improving the application with some new features, and for contributing the German translation.

And thanks to Nicola ‘tekNico’ Larosa for reviewing the documentation and for implementing the elastic pagination feature.

Django Endless Pagination¶

Changelog¶

Version 2.0¶

Version 1.1¶

Getting started¶

Requirements¶

Installation¶

Settings¶

Quickstart¶

Twitter-style Pagination¶

Split the template¶

A shortcut for ajaxed views¶

Paginating objects¶

Pagination on scroll¶

On scroll pagination using chunks¶

Before version 2.0¶

Digg-style pagination¶

Page by page¶

Showing indexes¶

Number of pages¶

Adding Ajax¶

Multiple paginations in the same page¶

Adding Ajax for multiple pagination¶

Manually selecting what to bind¶

Lazy pagination¶

Different number of items on the first page¶

Getting the current page number¶

In the template¶

In the view¶

Templatetags reference¶

paginate¶

lazy_paginate¶

show_more¶

get_pages¶

show_pages¶

show_current_number¶

JavaScript reference¶

Activating Ajax support¶

Pagination on scroll¶

Attaching callbacks¶

Manually selecting what to bind¶

Customize each pagination¶

Selectors¶

On scroll pagination using chunks¶

Migrate from version 1.1 to 2.0¶

Basic migration¶

Pagination on scroll¶

Pagination on scroll with customized bottom margin¶

Avoid enabling Ajax on one or more paginations¶

Generic views¶

AjaxListView reference¶

Customization¶

Settings¶

Templates and CSS¶

Contributing¶

Creating a development environment¶

Testing the application¶

Debugging¶

Source code and contacts¶

Repository and bugs¶

Contacts¶

Thanks¶