7.1. Customizing public web interface

The public web interface (see also Public interface (PIF)) is sourced as the component fred-webwhois. It is a standard Django application.

Note

We give quickstart tips in this customization tutorial, however, we recommend you to familiarize yourself with the Django framework.

Also notice that there is a difference between a Django app and a Django project.

The fred-webwhois app has some templates and views. It does not have any models, since it handles data through CORBA calls.

The public web interface can be divided into 3 feature groups:

  • whois lookup – a form for web WHOIS search, results and details about registered objects,

  • registrar listing – a list of accredited registrars and their details,

  • public requests – forms and responses for submission of requests from the public.

These feature groups are not stricly separated in the code, they are only used in this documentation for better clarity.

7.1.1. Redesigning stylesheets

If you need to adapt the visual style only, changing CSS should suffice.

Create a folder for stylesheets under the static/webwhois directory of the fred-webwhois app, such as css, and put your stylesheet(s) in there.

Then you have to add a reference to your stylesheet file(s) in the template that contains the HTML head (by default in the base template) as follows:

Link to a stylesheet in a template
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="{% static "webwhois/css/mystyle.css" %}"/>

You should use the static tag and a path relative to the static directory. Django will render this expression to the full file path accordingly.

Before deployment, you must collect static files (e.g. images, JavaScript, CSS) to a single location, see Django 1.11: Managing static files.

7.1.2. Reconfiguring URLs

The URL patterns of the public web interface are composed as http(s)://hostname/base-path/app-paths.

The scheme, hostname, and eventually the base path are defined in web-server configuration.

The webwhois app-paths suffixes look like this by default (strings following the base path):

  • (empty suffix) – the whois lookup form,

  • registrars/ – the list of registrars,

  • send-password/ – the public request to send AuthInfo password,

  • and so on (the list is not complete).

You can find the app-paths configuration in webwhois/urls.py of the fred-webwhois app and redefine them to your liking.

7.1.3. Redesigning templates

Django uses its own template system (the DjangoTemplates backend), which is recommended.

The default webwhois templates are written in the Django template language, which allows separation of templates into several files, their inclusion, and inheritance, among other features.

If you want to reorganize how information is presented or to add custom site components, you can override only the components necessary.

For example:

Let us say that you want a different representation of the list of registrars: a simple list instead of a table. You only need to override the template component that defines the table (block webwhois_content), which originates in the template webwhois/registrar_list.html.

  • Create a file such as /path/to/my-templates/webwhois/my_registrar_list.html with the following content:

    Django: Overriding a template block
    {# Name the template to be extended. #}
{% extends "webwhois/registrar_list.html" %}

{# Load library with webwhois filters (allows the use of "add_scheme" filter below). #}
{% load webwhois_filters %}

{# Name the block to override. #}
{% block webwhois_content %}
   {# Your own definition of the block follows. #}
   <ul>
      {% for item in registrars|dictsort:"registrar.name" %}
         <li><a href="{{ item.registrar.url|add_scheme }}">{{ item.registrar.name }}</a></li>
      {% endfor %}
   </ul>
{% endblock webwhois_content %}

{# The rest of the template is inherited from the template being extended. #}

  • Define the template_name variable for the corresponding view in your URLs module:

    Django: Reconfiguring a template for a view
    urlpatterns = [
 # From the template reference, we know that the list is rendered by this view
 # so we tell it that we want to use another template than the default
 url(r'^registrars/$', RegistrarListView.as_view(template_name="webwhois/my_registrar_list.html"), name='registrars'),
 # ...
 # Include the original webwhois URLs
 url(r'^', include('webwhois.urls')
]

  • Then add the directory path of the custom template to the DIRS list in templates configuration as follows:

    Django: Setting a custom template path in project settings
    TEMPLATES = [
    {
        'BACKEND': 'django.template.backends.django.DjangoTemplates',
        # ...
        'DIRS': [
           '/path/to/my-templates',
        ],
    },
]

For more about Django templates in fred-webwhois see Webwhois Django Templates.

See also Django 1.11: Templates (a brief introduction).

7.1.4. Creating a new localization

Django uses gettext for internationalization and localization.

To make your own localization, create language files, into which you will place your translations.

Before deployment, remember to compile the language files.

See also Django 1.11: Iternationalization and localization.

Reference