Receiving email content with in a template using Django contact form - django

Question

I have set up a fully operational contact form and now I would like to render the users inputs into a html template, so when I receive the email it is easier to read.
How do I do this? Do I link the template below some where, or link the form with in a template? Thank you in advance
def contactPage(request):
if request.method == 'POST':
form = contactForm(request.POST)
if form.is_valid():
subject = "INQUIRY"
body = {
'full_name': form.cleaned_data['full_name'],
'email': form.cleaned_data['email_address'],
'message':form.cleaned_data['message'],
}
message = "\n".join(body.values())
try:
send_mail(subject, message, '', ['email])
except BadHeaderError:
return HttpResponse('Invalid header found.')
return redirect ('thankyou')
form = contactForm()
return render(request, "contact.html", {'form':form})

Answer 1

One approach is to use the html_message parameter in send_mail(). html_message can refer to an html template that will be used to present the message content. Here's what I have working:
forms.py
from django import forms
class ContactForm(forms.Form):
full_name = forms.CharField(max_length=100)
message = forms.CharField(widget=forms.Textarea)
from_email = forms.EmailField()
views.py
from django.core.mail import send_mail
from django.http import HttpResponseRedirect
from django.shortcuts import render
from django.template.loader import render_to_string
from django.urls import reverse
from app1.forms import ContactForm
def html_email_view(request):
template = 'email_form.html'
if request.POST:
form = ContactForm(request.POST)
if form.is_valid():
message_plain = render_to_string(
'email.txt',
{
'full_name': form.cleaned_data['full_name'],
'message': form.cleaned_data['message'],
},
)
message_html = render_to_string(
'email.html',
{
'full_name': form.cleaned_data['full_name'],
'message_lines': list(filter(bool, form.cleaned_data['message'].splitlines())),
},
)
send_mail(
subject='INQUIRY',
message=message_plain,
from_email=form.cleaned_data['from_email'],
recipient_list=['fake#email.com'],
html_message=message_html,
)
return HttpResponseRedirect(reverse('app1:html_email_view'))
else:
form = ContactForm()
context = {'form': form}
return render(request, template, context)
email.html
<h1>You've received an email through site.com!</h1>
<div><b>Full name:</b> {{ full_name }}</div>
<hr>
<div><b>Message:</b></div>
{% for line in message_lines %}
<p>{{ line }}</p>
{% endfor %}
email.txt
Message from: {{ full_name }}
--------------------------------
Message:
{{ message }}
--------------------------------
Sending a message through this form, I get one email in my inbox. Here's a screen shot:
A related SO question is: Creating email templates with Django
Note: My answer implements andilabs's answer from that post.
Docs reference: https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/4.1/topics/email/#send-mail