Django-Templated-Email

Info:	A Django oriented templated email sending class
Author:	Bradley Whittington (http://github.com/bradwhittington, http://twitter.com/darb)
Tests:

Overview

django-templated-email is oriented towards sending templated emails intended for use with transactional mailers (with support for MailchimpSTS, and PostageApp), but as a default with a backend class which uses django's templating system, and django's core.mail functions. The library supports template inheritence, adding cc'd and bcc'd recipients, configurable template naming and location, with easy switching between backends/providers.

The send_templated_email method can be thought of as the render_to_response shortcut for email.

Getting going - installation

Installing:

pip install django-templated-email

You can add the following to your settings.py (but it works out the box):

TEMPLATED_EMAIL_BACKEND = 'templated_email.backends.vanilla_django.TemplateBackend'

# You can use a shortcut version
TEMPLATED_EMAIL_BACKEND = 'templated_email.backends.vanilla_django'

# You can also use a class directly
from templated_email.backends.vanilla_django import TemplateBackend
TEMPLATED_EMAIL_BACKEND = TemplateBackend

Sending templated emails

Example usage using vanilla_django TemplateBackend backend

Python to send mail:

from templated_email import send_templated_mail
send_templated_mail(
        template_name='welcome',
        from_email='from@example.com',
        recipient_list=['to@example.com'],
        context={
            'username':request.user.username,
            'full_name':request.user.get_full_name(),
            'signup_date':request.user.date_joined
        },
        # Optional:
        # cc=['cc@example.com'],
        # bcc=['bcc@example.com'],
        # headers={'My-Custom-Header':'Custom Value'},
        # template_prefix="my_emails/",
        # template_suffix="email",
)

If you would like finer control on sending the email, you can use get_templated_email, which will return a django EmailMessage object, prepared using the vanilla_django backend:

from templated_email import get_templated_mail
get_templated_mail(
        template_name='welcome',
        from_email='from@example.com',
        to=['to@example.com'],
        context={
            'username':request.user.username,
            'full_name':request.user.get_full_name(),
            'signup_date':request.user.date_joined
        },
        # Optional:
        # cc=['cc@example.com'],
        # bcc=['bcc@example.com'],
        # headers={'My-Custom-Header':'Custom Value'},
        # template_prefix="my_emails/",
        # template_suffix="email",
)

You can also cc and bcc recipients using cc=['example@example.com']. Some backends have other parameters you can override, see below.

Your template

The templated_email/ directory needs to be the templates directory.

The backend will look in my_app/templates/templated_email/welcome.email

{% block subject %}My subject for {{username}}{% endblock %}
{% block plain %}
  Hi {{full_name}},

  You just signed up for my website, using:
      username: {{username}}
      join date: {{signup_date}}

  Thanks, you rock!
{% endblock %}

If you want to include an HTML part to your emails, simply use the 'html' block

{% block html %}
  <p>Hi {{full_name}},</p>

  <p>You just signed up for my website, using:
      <dl>
        <dt>username</dt><dd>{{username}}</dd>
        <dt>join date</dt><dd>{{signup_date}}</dd>
      </dl>
  </p>

  <p>Thanks, you rock!</p>
{% endblock %}

You can globally override the template dir, and file extension using the following variables in settings.py

TEMPLATED_EMAIL_TEMPLATE_DIR = 'templated_email/' #use '' for top level template dir, ensure there is a trailing slash
TEMPLATED_EMAIL_FILE_EXTENSION = 'email'

For the vanilla_django and mailchimp_sts backends you can set a value for template_prefix and template_suffix (or use the less backend-portable template_dir / file_extension) for every time you call send_templated_mail, if you wish to store a set of templates in a different directory. Remember to include a trailing slash.

Please note / Warning about template inheritence

There is very basic support for template inheritence (using {% extends ... %} in templates). You will run into issues if you use {{block.super}}, and will result in blank parts of emails.

Legacy Behaviour

The 0.2.x version of the library looked in django template directories/loaders for templated_email/welcome.txt

Hey {{full_name}},

You just signed up for my website, using:
    username: {{username}}
    join date: {{signup_date}}

Thanks, you rock!

It will use templated_email/welcome.html for the html part of the email allowing you to make it so much pretty.

Future Plans

See https://github.com/bradwhittington/django-templated-email/issues?state=open

Using django_templated_email in 3rd party applications:

If you would like to use django_templated_email to handle mail in a reusable application, you should note that:

• Your calls to send_templated_mail should set a value for template_dir, so you can keep copies of your app-specific templates local to your app (although the loader will find your email templates if you store them in <your app>/templates/templated_email, if TEMPLATED_EMAIL_TEMPLATE_DIR has not been overidden)
• If you do (and you should) set a value for template_dir, remember to include a trailing slash, i.e. 'my_app_email/'
• The deployed app may use a different backend which doesn't use the django templating backend, and as such make a note in your README warning developers that if they are using django_templated_email already, with a different backend, they will need to ensure their email provider can send all your templates (ideally enumerate those somewhere convenient)

Notes on specific backends:

Using vanilla_django:

This is the default backend, and as such requires no special configuration, and will work out of the box. By default it assumes the following settings (should you wish to override them):

TEMPLATED_EMAIL_TEMPLATE_DIR = 'templated_email/' #Use '' for top level template dir
TEMPLATED_EMAIL_FILE_EXTENSION = 'email'

For legacy purposes you can specify email subjects in your settings file (but, the preferred method is to use a {% block subject %} in your template):

TEMPLATED_EMAIL_DJANGO_SUBJECTS = {
    'welcome':'Welcome to my website',
}

Additionally you can call send_templated_mail and optionally override the following parameters:

template_prefix='your_template_dir/'  # Override where the method looks for email templates (alternatively, use template_dir)
template_suffix='email'               # Override the file extension of the email templates (alternatively, use file_extension)
cc=['fubar@example.com']              # Set a CC on the mail
bcc=['fubar@example.com']             # Set a BCC on the mail
template_dir='your_template_dir/'     # Override where the method looks for email templates
connection=your_connection            # Takes a django mail backend connection, created using **django.core.mail.get_connection**
auth_user='username'                  # Override the user that the django mail backend uses, per **django.core.mail.send_mail**
auth_password='password'              # Override the password that the django mail backend uses, per **django.core.mail.send_mail**

Using PostageApp:

To use the PostageApp (http://postageapp.com) send method, you will need to install python-postageapp:

pip install -e git://github.com/bradwhittington/python-postageapp.git#egg=postageapp

And add the following to your settings.py:

TEMPLATED_EMAIL_BACKEND = 'templated_email.backends.postageapp_backend.TemplateBackend'

POSTAGEAPP_API_KEY = 'yourapikey'

#If you are already using django-postageapp:

EMAIL_POSTAGEAPP_API_KEY = POSTAGEAPP_API_KEY

Using MAILCHIMP STS:

To use the MailChimp STS send method, you will need to install mailsnake (please note, until the main mailsnake has STS support, you need to use my fork):

pip install -e git://github.com/nitinhayaran/greatape.git#egg=greatape

And add the following to your settings.py:

TEMPLATED_EMAIL_BACKEND = 'templated_email.backends.mailchimp_sts.TemplateBackend'

MAILCHIMP_API_KEY = 'yourapikey'

# For the django back-end specifically
TEMPLATED_EMAIL_MAILCHIMP = {
    'welcome':{
      'subject':'Welcome to my website',
      'track_opens':True,
      'track_clicks':False,
      'tags':['my','little','pony'],
    }
}

The Mailchimp STS sender uses the same template processor as the VanillaDjango backend, so you can override the following settings globally:

TEMPLATED_EMAIL_TEMPLATE_DIR = 'templated_email/' #use '' for top level template dir
TEMPLATED_EMAIL_FILE_EXTENSION = 'email'

You can also override the template_dir variable when calling send_templated_mail