A Search Form

Part of the Forms section of Coddy's Django journey. Lesson 1 of 20.

Visitors cannot search the events board yet. A form is a set of fields and a button that sends what was typed to a URL.

A form that only reads data uses method="get": the browser puts each field in the URL's query string, as name=value. A size filter on a shop's page:

<form method="get">
    <select name="size">
        <option value="S">Small</option>
        <option value="L">Large</option>
    </select>
    <button type="submit">Show</button>
</form>

Choosing Large opens /products/?size=L. The field's name is the key, so the view reads it like any query string: request.GET.get("size", ""), with a default for the plain page.

After a search the page reloads, and the box is empty again. To keep the words in it, pass them back to the template and write them in the input's value.

Challenge

Easy

Add a search to the home page.

In event_list.html, above <ul class="events">, add a form with method="get" holding an input named q and a Search button.
In event_list, keep the events whose title has q, ignoring capitals.
Pass q to the template for the input's value, so a search for Meetup stays in the box.

Search for jazz: only Friday Jazz Night is left, and the box still says jazz.

Try it yourself

from django.shortcuts import get_object_or_404, render

from .models import Event


def event_list(request):
    events = Event.objects.all()
    return render(request, "events/event_list.html", {"events": events})


def event_detail(request, pk):
    event = get_object_or_404(Event, pk=pk)
    return render(request, "events/event_detail.html", {"event": event})