Django Generic Follow

django-generic-follow is a system to allow users to follow any model in a Django project.

Installation / Setup

Basics

First, install the package with pip

pip install django-generic-follow

Then add generic_follow to your INSTALLED_APPS

INSTALLED_APPS = (
    ...,
    'generic_follow',
)

User Model

If you are using the auth.User user model, the user instance methods will be set up for you. If you are using a custom User model, you will need to apply the UserFollowMixin

from django.contrib.auth.models import AbstractUser
from generic_follow.model_mixins import UserFollowMixin

class MyCustomUser(UserFollowMixin, AbstractUser):
    ...

Target Models

To add the convenience methods to models that will be followed apply the TargetFollowMixin

from django.db import models
from generic_follow.model_mixins import TargetFollowMixin


class Band(TargetFollowMixin, models.Model):
    name = models.CharField(max_length=255)

Usage

Follow/Unfollow

To make a user follow a model instance use the user.follow method

user = User.objects.first()
band = Band.objects.get(name='Foals')

user.follow(band)

To make a user unfollow a model instance simply call user.unfollow

user.unfollow(band)

Checking if a user currently follows a model instance involves calling user.is_following

user.is_following(band)
# true/false

Retrieval Methods

To see all model instances that a user is following call the user.get_follow_set method.

user.get_follow_set()
# [<Band: foals>]

Optionally, the model kwarg can be provided to only return followed instances of that model type

user.get_follow_set(Photographer)
# []

On the follow target, model.get_follower_set can be called to retrieve all followers

band.get_follower_set()

Batch Operations

To make a list of users follow a given model instance call the create_batch manager method

user2 = ...

Follow.objects.create_batch(users=[user, user2], target=band)

To perform the inverse, call the delete_batch manager method

Follow.objects.delete_batch(users=[user, user2], target=band)

To make some users follow a model instance, and others unfollow the same model instance in the same command, use update_batch. The users_follow kwarg accepts a 2-tuple of user instance, and a boolean indicating if this user should be following the instance.

Follow.objects.update_batch(
    target=band,
    users_follow=[(user, True), (user2, False)]
)
# user will now be following foals, user2 will now not be following foals

Signals

Batch operations emit signals which can be used elsewhere in your project.

follow_bulk_create: Sent after Follow.objects.create_batch() completes

follow_bulk_delete: Sent after Follow.objects.delete_batch() completes

These signals send users and target as kwargs.

Connecting to these signals is the same as any other Django signal

def bulk_create_callback(sender, **kwargs):
    ...

from generic_follow.signals import follow_bulk_create
follow_bulk_create.connect(bulk_create_callback, sender=Follow)

Contributions

Pull requests / issues welcome!