Add current site's domain to template dirs - django

Question

What is the correct way to prepend an extra, site-specific templates directory to the template dirs setting in Django?
TEMPLATES = [
{
'BACKEND': 'django.template.backends.django.DjangoTemplates',
'DIRS': [
<PREPEND SITE-BASED TEMPLATE DIR IN HERE>
str(APPS_DIR.path('templates')),
],
'OPTIONS': {
'debug': DEBUG,
'loaders': [
'django.template.loaders.filesystem.Loader',
'django.template.loaders.app_directories.Loader',
],
'context_processors': [
'django.template.context_processors.debug',
'django.template.context_processors.request',
'django.contrib.auth.context_processors.auth',
'django.template.context_processors.i18n',
'django.template.context_processors.media',
'django.template.context_processors.static',
'django.template.context_processors.tz',
'django.contrib.messages.context_processors.messages',
],
},
},
]
I obviously can't use Site.objects.get_current() in there.
I could write my own template loader which uses it but is that "correct"?
Or should I be using an extended version of the settings files or something?

Answer 1

First of all, start by separating the settings. You should have a settings hierarchy that goes like:
base_settings.py
siteA_settings.py
siteB_settings.py
On base_settings.py you should put all the settings that are project-wide.
siteA_settings.py (which is a child) will override the base_settings.
To make it site-specific you have to put on each setting file the SITE_ID setting. Example of siteA_settings.py
# Sites Framework
SITE_ID = 1
SITE_TITLE = 'First Site'
Then load the TEMPLATES settings. They can be different on each setting file. Example:
TEMPLATES = [
{
'BACKEND': 'django.template.backends.django.DjangoTemplates',
'DIRS': [
os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'templates'),
],
'APP_DIRS': True,
... , etc.
Just like TEMPLATES, you can choose to have different settings for each Site (apps, email settings etc)
Then, when you run the server, you should specify which setting (site) you want to run. Example:
python manage.py runserver --settings=myproject.siteA_settings
where myproject is the app where your settings are located.
Do not forget that you have to put the --settings argument everytime you run a command (including makemigrations, migrate, etc etc)
Usually, on my projects, I create a core app, a settings directory and inside it, I put base_settings.py, dev.py, local.py, production.py etc. When running the Django Development Server, I then run the command:
python manage.py runserver --settings=core.settings.local