Is it possible to perform Includes with flask?

Question

Say I have a template layout saved in template.html. This template includes a banner, side navigation, content container, and footer. Can I use flask to break up these page elements in such a way that I can have files such as banner.html, sidenavigation.html, etc. and render these different files within template.html?

Riehl

Answer 1

From: http://jinja.pocoo.org/docs/templates/#include

template.html

{% include 'banner.html' %}
{% include 'sidenavigation.html' %}
{% include 'content.html' %}
{% include 'footer.html' %}

Whimsicality

You might also want to look at Template Inheritance, as it might be a more powerful way of doing what you want: jinja.pocoo.org/docs/templates/#template-inheritance – Whimsicality

It should be noted that you can not create an inheritance hierarchy in Jinja2, you can only inherit a document one level deep. – Tabbie

@MadPumpkin: What exactly do you mean my that? You can extend as many levels deep as you want. It's not possible to extend a single template from multiple others (perhaps that is what you meant?) – Enloe

Answer 2

By default, Flask uses Jinja2 as its template engine. See Jinja's Template Designer Documentation how it's done.

Kalikalian

But is it possible to highlight, which page is active in sidenavigation.html? – Hitherward

@Hitherward You can make use of the scoped keyword in the block definition within "sidenavigation.html". See Jinja's "Block Nesting and Scope" section. Their example is {% block loop_item scoped %}{{ item }}{% endblock %} which allows item to pull its definition from the inheriting template. – Amabelle

Answer 3

Before you start, you need to write these components separately to other html files as pure html. For example, these files shouldn't contain any jinja syntax. After that, according to the documentation, you can easily import them into your template.html file by calling {% include 'filename.html' %} code.

Sardou

Answer 4

Think carefully about whether to use inheritance (extends) vs composition (include).

If you have several pages with nearly identical structure, inheritance may be the best choice. But if you are 'planning for change', composition may be more flexible, and only slightly longer.

It's common for folks new to object-orientation to overuse inheritance. See "Uncle Bob" on the question, at https://twitter.com/unclebobmartin/status/1308029538463625219?lang=en

Albertalberta