Display static page in Django - django

Question

I am trying to display contents of a static page in Django project.
urls.py :-
from django.conf.urls import patterns, include, url
from django.contrib import admin
admin.autodiscover()
urlpatterns = patterns('',
# Examples:
# url(r'^$', 'spollow.views.home', name='home'),
# url(r'^blog/', include('blog.urls')),
(r'^$', 'django.views.generic.simple.direct_to_template', {'template': 'index.html'}),
url(r'^admin/', include(admin.site.urls)),
)
index.html is in the same directory as urls.py
I am getting 500 internal server error. Any ideas where I am going wrong?

Answer 1

First of all, what is the stacktrace from the 500 error saying that the error may be? You may be using Django 1.6 and the call to direct_to_template is deprecated.
On Django 1.5 or newer you can use TemplateView
Here's the example from the documentation
https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/topics/class-based-views/
from django.conf.urls import patterns
from django.views.generic import TemplateView
urlpatterns = patterns('',
(r'^about/', TemplateView.as_view(template_name="about.html")),
)
You can use the direct_to_template view on Django 1.4 or older
Here's the relevant documentation
https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.4/ref/generic-views/#django-views-generic-simple-direct-to-template
from django.views.generic.simple import direct_to_template
urlpatterns = patterns('',
(r'^foo/$', direct_to_template, {'template': 'foo_index.html'}),
(r'^foo/(?P<id>\d+)/$', direct_to_template, {'template': 'foo_detail.html'}),
)
If it is the latter, I would use a module instead of string, (look at the import on the example).
Other than that, without the 500 details it will be shooting in the dark, you may not have the right template, or an incorrect path, or a million different things.
Bonus note
If you just want to serve static pages, it might be better to serve them through the actual webserver in front of django (nginx, apache, etc), specially if you are expecting a high volume of traffic.

Answer 2

If Your error is due to unable to find index.html
if yours is an app(ie: created by python manage.py startapp <app>) then:
Then django will search for template files in <app>/templates directory, if you added the app to INSTALLED_APPS in settings.py.
so you need to create a folder templates inside your <app> and put index.html inside it.
if you don't have any apps, you want to add the template path manually :
open settings.py, then edit TEMPLATE_DIRS
TEMPLATE_DIRS = (
# Put the full path of the template dir here, like "/home/html/django_templates" or
# "C:/www/django/templates".
)

Answer 3

In Django 1.5 or newer you can use the render function instead of direct_to_template:
from django.conf.urls import patterns, include, url
urlpatterns = patterns('',
url(r'^$', 'django.shortcuts.render', {'template_name': 'index.html'}),
)
Or if you prefer the more complex way :), you can use class-based TemplateView:
from django.conf.urls import patterns, include, url
from django.views.generic import TemplateView
urlpatterns = patterns('',
url(r'^$', TemplateView.as_view(template_name="index.html")),
)