Editing a previously generated HTML file with Django - django

Question

I am very new to web development and the following is my use-case :
I have a large number of Bokeh charts, each in a separate HTML file.
In simple terms, I would like to have a home page, where I can provide
links to each one of these charts. However, During runtime, I would
like to edit these separate HTML files, so as to provide a link to go
back to the home page or to other pages. I would not like to modify
the HTML files permanently, so I can make use of them outside of the
web page as well for simple visualization on my system.
What is the best way to do this ? Are there technologies outside Django, I should be looking at to do something like this ?

Answer 1

If most of the content is static, maybe have a look at Jekyll.
The include functionality would let you create one file with the 'link back to the homepage' or in fact further content which you want to avoid repeating (such as navbars, headers, footers).
Bootstrap 4 is your freind for making the site look shiney.
As you're building the site you can run the development server with jekyll serve which allows you to connect to a development server from your browser, and preview changes as you're making them. This would be accessible somewhere like http://localhost:4000/
When you're ready to publish, you can use the jekyll build command, which outputs all of the static HTML files to the _site directory. Notice that at this point, the step of 'putting the homepage link in every page' is handled automatically by Jekyll and you end up with a directory you can upload directly to any hosting platform. The original HTML files/Boken Charts can therefor remain in their original form for use elsewhere.
This method is probably much more effiient than using Django for your use-case, which seems to require serving lots of static content whch already exists. With Django in production you'd need an application server, as well as a webserver and possibly a database which means more things to go wrong.
For bonus points, once you've got the hosting setup, stick the whole thing behind CloudFlare to reduce your hosting costs, and improve access speeds for visitors around the world!
Good luck.
EDIT: response to comment:*
Do you mean that I should abandon django altogether ?
If the purpose is just to serve your exising HTML files to the public, without any requirement for authentication, editing of content by users through the frontend, or more advanced back-end functions, then yes Django is probably overkill for this task.
How is Jekyll different from Django ?
Django is a Python Web Framework, which allows you to build an interactive site on which users or staff can login, post articles, comment, etc. One of its key features is the ability to define database relationships trough 'Models' and then have all the admin-side forms generated automatically in the background. This means, with minimal work, you can instantly have the 'admin portal' side of the site live, which works great for use-cases like large blogs or news sites. You would then build the frontend, which can also be interactive. To launch this into production is a separate task which involves configuring multiple server components.
Jeykll on the other hand is much simpler, and basically gives you a way to create some template HTML files (avoiding the need to repeat code for stuff like navigation bars) and then with the jekyll build command outputs a _site directory which can be uploaded straight to a basic webserver. This is the crucial part, as you then only need a webserver which can serve static content, rather than requiring python, a database, application server like UWSGI, etc
Let's look at this example from the Jeyll Docs with your usecase in mind.
You could define a YML file with a list of all your charts:
docs_list_title: All Charts here.
docs:
- title: A Lovely Bokeh Chart.
url: bokeh_chart_1.html
- title: This Bokeh Chart is even Better
url: bokeh_chart_2.html
You mentioned previously that you already have the HTML files, so really what you've done here is made a list of those, which can be interpreted by the frontend.
The HTML template portion would look something like this:
<h2>{{ site.data.samplelist.docs_list_title }}</h2>
<ul>
{% for item in site.data.samplelist.docs %}
<li>{{ item.title }}</li>
{% endfor %}
</ul>
This would result in a list of links to all of your Charts, with the link text as the title.
Obviously you could then go further and add further info to the YML file, like beneath each url put publisher: someone which could then be accessed in the template's for loop as {{item.publisher}}
Can such tools like Jekyll, Django and Bootstrap be used together ?
Bootstrap can be used with Django or Jekyll, as it is a CSS library which controls how HTML is rendered in the user's browser. Check the documentation for more examples of its capability.
A good starting point may be to download a theme from somewhere like Start Bootstrap. Once you have that as a ZIP file, you can put it in your Jeykll project and attempt to have it render through the dev server with jekyll serve. You can then remove nav bar or header code to separate include files (see my earlier link to the Jeykll docs) and before you know it you'll be seeing progress.
The best way to learn is to just go ahead and try this!