Quick and dirty 'type' for Django's message model

In an earlier post I had mentioned using a 'flash' variable passed to templates as a mechanism for passing messages to users. Following an anonymous tip I started using user.message_set instead to pass messages. This mechanism makes use of Django's message model and is easy to use. However it does have a limitation. Messages cannot be assigned types - say, 'Error' or 'Success' or 'Warning'. This has been discussed at some length at the Django site. A design decision is awaited as the suggested changes will not be backward compatible.

In the meantime I needed message types for a pet application and came up with a quick and dirty way of providing some. Changes were required in three places: the view, where messages are created; the template which displays the messages and the style sheet used for styling the rendered templates.

The solution (did I say it was dirty?) involved prefixing a digit and a separator to all messages. The digit would indicate the type of message. I chose 0 to indicate success, 1 for warnings, 2 for errors etc. Corresponding styles were then created to appropriately style the messages.

Here is a sample view:

view plainprint?

1. def save_something(request):  
2.     if saved:  
3.         request.user.message_set.create(message = "0|Object was saved successfully")  
4.     else:  
5.         request.user.message_set.create(message = "2|Object could not be saved")  

def save_something(request): if saved: request.user.message_set.create(message = "0|Object was saved successfully") else: request.user.message_set.create(message = "2|Object could not be saved") The template looks something like this:

view plainprint?

1. {% if messages %}  
2.     <div id="messages">  
3.     {% for message in messages %}  
4.         <p class="m{{ message|slice:"0:1"}}">{{ message|slice:"2:" }}</p>  
5.     {% endfor %}  
6.     </div>  
7. {% endif %}  

{% if messages %} <div id="messages"> {% for message in messages %} <p class="m{{ message|slice:"0:1"}}">{{ message|slice:"2:" }}</p> {% endfor %} </div> {% endif %} There is a corresponding style sheet as well:

view plainprint?

1. #messages p {  
2.   margin: 0; padding: 0;  
3. }  
4.   
5. #messages p.m0 {  
6.   background: transparent url(success.gif) 0 100% no-repeat;  
7.   color: green;  
8. }  
9.   
10. #messages p.m1 {  
11.   background: transparent url(warning.gif) 0 100% no-repeat;  
12.   color: yellow;  
13. }  
14.   
15. #messages p.m2 {  
16.   background: transparent url(failure.gif) 0 100% no-repeat;  
17.   color: red;  
18. }  
19. /* etc */  

#messages p { margin: 0; padding: 0; } #messages p.m0 { background: transparent url(success.gif) 0 100% no-repeat; color: green; } #messages p.m1 { background: transparent url(warning.gif) 0 100% no-repeat; color: yellow; } #messages p.m2 { background: transparent url(failure.gif) 0 100% no-repeat; color: red; } /* etc */