Serving django static files in development envirnoment

Question

I want to use static files to load my css with runserver command. The problem is that i tried all the solution i found here on stackoverflow and also in django docs, but it doesnt works at all... I dont know what can i do... If i set

STATIC_URL = '/static/'
STATIC_ROOT = 'C:\Users\Max\Works\www\mysite\mysite\static'
INSTALLED_APPS = (
    'django.contrib.auth',
    'django.contrib.contenttypes',
    'django.contrib.sessions',
    'django.contrib.sites',
    'django.contrib.messages',
    'django.contrib.staticfiles',
)

I thought it was enough... Am i missing something? Can you tell me what is the best setting for have static files in develompent envirnoment? Thanks in advice...

EDIT(1) I already putted in my template {{ STATIC_URL }}css/dark-grey.css" and ofc the css is in C:\Users\Max\Works\www\mysite\mysite\static\css\dark-grey.css, i really can't get what is wrong...

Answer 1

In your settings.py

DEBUG=True

As per the docs:

This view is automatically enabled by runserver (with a DEBUG setting set to True).

Using the URL pattern is a way to force it, which I personally don't even have to do in my project as long as DEBUG=True. You would always have DEBUG on when you are developing, and when you switch to production you aren't even using the development server anyways, so you would be pointing your production server to the static location.

This is a snippet of my static settings from my settings.py. I do not manually have to add that static view URL

import os

DEBUG = True

PROJECT_ROOT = os.path.dirname( __file__ )
PROJECT_NAME = os.path.basename(PROJECT_ROOT)

STATIC_ROOT = os.path.join(PROJECT_ROOT, 'static/')
STATIC_URL = '/static/'

# Additional locations of static files
STATICFILES_DIRS = (
    # Put strings here, like "/home/html/static" or "C:/www/django/static".
    # Always use forward slashes, even on Windows.
    # Don't forget to use absolute paths, not relative paths.
    os.path.join(PROJECT_ROOT, 'web/'),
)

# List of finder classes that know how to find static files in
# various locations.
STATICFILES_FINDERS = (
    'django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.FileSystemFinder',
    'django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.AppDirectoriesFinder',
)


TEMPLATE_CONTEXT_PROCESSORS = (
    ...
    'django.core.context_processors.static',
    ...
    ...
)

Answer 2

Use / slashes and NOT \ slashes in the path, even for windows paths.

Answer 3

You need to add url patterns:

from django.contrib.staticfiles.urls import staticfiles_urlpatterns

# ... the rest of your URLconf here ...

urlpatterns += staticfiles_urlpatterns()

See the documentation here

Answer 4

You also need to run the following command to get the static files moved into the right place (and for Django to know they're there):

python manage.py collectstatic

Full documentation on static files in Django 1.3 is here: https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/ref/contrib/staticfiles/