WebDevGrad: Django

What are Django Messages?

The messages framework lets you store short, one-time notifications (like “Your profile was updated!”) that are shown to users after an action. These may be for:

A successful form submission
A failed login attempt
A warning or error

They're stored temporarily (in the session or request) and automatically cleared once displayed.

Enabling Messages

Django's message framework is included by default, so you just need to confirm these apps and middleware are in your settings.py:

        
INSTALLED_APPS = [
    'django.contrib.messages',
    # other apps...
]

MIDDLEWARE = [
    'django.contrib.sessions.middleware.SessionMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.messages.middleware.MessageMiddleware',
    # other middleware...
]


    

You can overwrite the default values like so:

        
from django.contrib.messages import constants as message_constants

MESSAGE_TAGS = {
    message_constants.DEBUG: 'debug',
    message_constants.INFO: 'info',
    message_constants.SUCCESS: 'success',
    message_constants.WARNING: 'warning',
    message_constants.ERROR: 'error',
}


    

You can even make custom ones like:

message_constants.SUCCESS: 'green-toast'

Including Messages in your Views

To access messages in your views, first import Django's message system at the top of the file and then add your messages like so:

        
from django.shortcuts import redirect, render
from django.contrib import messages

def profile_update(request):
    # some logic here...
    messages.success(request, "Your profile has been updated successfully!")
    return redirect('profile')

Message Levels

Level	Method	Purpose
Debug	`messages.debug()`	For developers (rarely shown to users)
Info	`messages.info()`	General info (“You're now logged in.”)
Success	`messages.success()`	Success messages
Warning	`messages.warning()`	Cautionary messages
Error	`messages.error()`	Error messages such as "Invalid password."

Display Messages in your Templates

Add this block (usually in base.html, right under the navbar or header). This loops through any queued messages and displays them with classes depending on their level tags (e.g. alert-success, alert-warning).

        
{% if messages %}
  <div class="messages">
    {% for message in messages %}
      <div class="alert 
        {% if message.tags %}alert-}} message.tags }}{% endif %}">
        {{ message }}
      </div>
    {% endfor %}
  </div>
{% endif %}


    

Django Message	Bootstrap Class
success	alert-success
info	alert-info
warning	alert-warning
error	alert-danger

If you use a CSS framework with different naming conventions (like Tailwind), you can override Django's default tag mappings in the settings.py file. Shown above in the Enabling Messages section.

Style Messages

If you're using Bootstrap, Django's default tags match up nicely.

        
{% if messages %}
  <div class="container mt-3">
    {% for message in messages %}
      <div class="alert alert-{{ message.tags }} alert-dismissible fade show" role="alert">
        {{ message }}
        <button type="button" class="btn-close" data-bs-dismiss="alert" aria-label="Close"></button>
      </div>
    {% endfor %}
  </div>
{% endif %}


    