django-smart-extends is a Django application that allows improve the extension system of Django templates.

It is distributed under the terms of the license write in the same directory, in the file COPYING.LGPLv3

• Django >= 1.5 (master branch)
• There are specific branches for Django 1.5.X and 1.4.X, 1.3.X and 1.2.X, and 1.1.X (Also there is an old and unmaintained branch of Django 1.1.0 without the last changes)

INSTALLED_APPS = (
    'django.contrib.auth',
    'django.contrib.contenttypes',
    'django.contrib.sessions',
    'django.contrib.sites',
    'django.contrib.admin',

    ...

    'smartextends',

)

And if you want:

OVERWRITE_EXTENDS = True

This application is useful when you want to overwrite a template of a application in your project. Currently this in Django produce infinite recursion

This is an example with django.contrib.admin app, but django-smart-extends works with any application, this is not only to the admin site. This is very useful if you use reusable django apps or any CMS implemented in django.

If you set OVERWRITE_EXTENDS = True

file:admin/change_list.html

{% extends "admin/change_list.html" %}

{% block extrastyle %}
    {{ block.super }}
    <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="XXX" />
{% endblock %}

Else:

file:admin/change_list.html

{% smart_extends "admin/change_list.html" %}

{% block extrastyle %}
    {{ block.super }}
    <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="XXX" />
{% endblock %}

If you set TEMPLATE_DEBUG = False in settings.py you must patch the django code. You can find the patch in the patches directoy:

patch -p2 -N -d my/path/of/django/ < ./patches/patch.diff

• Ticket in Django trac
• Pull request to Django repository