how-to-product.rst

How to create a product

Creating a product in django SHOP is really easy, but requires you to write python code.

Create a model

The first step for you is to create a model to use as a product. We will create an example Book model together:

from shop.models import Product
from django.db import models

class Book(Product):
    isbn = models.CharField(max_length=255)
    class Meta: pass

Note

Your product subclass must define a :class:`Meta` class. Usually, you will want to do so anyway, to define ordering and verbose names for example.

The following fields are already defined in the :class:`~shop.models.Product` superclass:

.. attribute:: name

    The name/title of the product

.. attribute:: slug

    The slug used to refer to this product in the URLs

.. attribute:: active

    Products flagged as not active will not show in the lists

.. attribute:: date_added

    The date at which the product was first created

.. attribute:: last_modified

    A timestamp of when the product was last modified

.. attribute:: unit_price

    The base price for one item

Create a template

Like other objects in Django, you will need to create a template to display your model's contents to the world.

By default, your :class:`~shop.models.Product` subclass will use the shop/product_detail.html template as a fallback, but will use your own template if you follow Django's naming conventions: appname/book_detail.html.

That's all there is to it :)

Using your newly created Product

Your product should behave like a normal Django model in all circumstances. You should register it to admin (and create an admin class for it) like a normal model.

Code wise, the following options are possible to retrieve your newly created model:

# This gets your model's instance the normal way, you get both your model's
# fields and the Product fields
o = MyProduct.objects.get(pk=...)

# This is also possible - You retrieve a MyProduct instance, using the
# Product manager
o = Product.objects.get(pk=...)

Note

This is possible thanks to the terrific django_polymorphic dependency

Product variations

By design, django SHOP does not include an out of the box solution to handling product variations (colors, sizes...), in order to let implementors create their own unrestricted.

If you want such a pre-made solution for simple cases, we suggest you take a look at the shop_simplevariations "add-on" application.