**Course Title:** Mastering Django Framework: Building Scalable Web Applications **Section Title:** Views and Templates **Topic:** Rendering templates with Django's template engine In this topic, we will explore how to render templates with Django's template engine, which is a powerful tool for separating presentation logic from application logic. By the end of this topic, you will be able to create and render templates in your Django, and understand how to pass data from views to templates. ### What is a Template Engine? A template engine is a software component that separates presentation logic from application logic. It allows you to define a template, which is a file that contains placeholders for dynamic data, and then render that template with the actual data. ### Django's Template Engine Django comes with a built-in template engine that allows you to create and render templates. The template engine is based on the Jinja2 templating engine, which is a popular and widely-used templating engine. ### Creating a Template To create a template in Django, you need to create a new file in the `templates` directory of your project. The file should have a `.html` extension, and should contain placeholders for dynamic data. For example, let's create a template called `hello.html` in the `templates` directory: ```html <!-- templates/hello.html --> <h1>Hello, {{ name }}!</h1> ``` In this example, the template contains a placeholder for a variable called `name`. ### Rendering a Template To render a template in Django, you need to use the `render` function from the `django.shortcuts` module. The `render` function takes two arguments: the name of the template to render, and a dictionary of variables to pass to the template. For example, let's render the `hello.html` template with a variable called `name`: ```python # views.py from django.shortcuts import render def hello_view(request): name = 'John Doe' return render(request, 'hello.html', {'name': name}) ``` In this example, the `hello_view` function renders the `hello.html` template with a variable called `name` set to `'John Doe'`. ### Template Syntax Django's template engine uses a syntax that is similar to HTML, but with some additional features. Here are some of the key features of the template syntax: * **Variables**: You can use variables in your template by surrounding them with double curly braces, like this: `{{ variable }}`. * **Loops**: You can use loops in your template to iterate over a list of items. For example: `{% for item in items %}{{ item }}{% endfor %}`. * **If statements**: You can use if statements in your template to conditionally render content. For example: `{% if variable %}{{ variable }}{% endif %}`. ### Best Practices Here are some best practices to keep in mind when working with templates in Django: * **Keep your templates simple**: Try to keep your templates as simple as possible, and avoid using complex logic or conditional statements. * **Use variables**: Use variables to pass data from your views to your templates, rather than hardcoding values. * **Use template inheritance**: Use template inheritance to create a base template that can be extended by other templates. ### Conclusion In this topic, we have covered the basics of rendering templates with Django's template engine. We have seen how to create and render templates, and how to pass data from views to templates. We have also covered some best practices for working with templates in Django. ### What's Next? In the next topic, we will cover how to pass data from views to templates. This will include how to use the `render` function to pass variables to templates, and how to use template syntax to access those variables. ### Leave a Comment or Ask for Help If you have any questions or need help with anything related to this topic, please leave a comment below. I'll do my best to help you out. ### External Resources * [Django documentation on templates](https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/4.1/topics/templates/) * [Jinja2 documentation](https://jinja.palletsprojects.com/en/3.0.x/)