Django class-based generic views - am I doing it right?

Question

I am working on a simple "to do list" app in Django (two models: List and Item). I'm trying to learn and make use of class-based generic views. I have the following three display views working, but am requesting a quick code review to see if there's anything I can do to improve my usage/understanding of Django's ListView and DetailView before I move on to creating, updating and deleting.

# class-based generic views for my lists, a list's items, and item detail...
class MyListsView(ListView):
 """Display the current user's Lists"""
 template_name = 'cmv_app/my_lists.html'
 context_object_name = 'my_lists'
 @method_decorator(login_required)
 def dispatch(self, *args, **kwargs):
 return super(MyListsView, self).dispatch(*args, **kwargs)
 def get_queryset(self):
 return List.objects.filter(user=self.request.user).order_by('-last_modified')
class ListItemsView(ListView):
 """Display a list's items"""
 template_name = 'cmv_app/list_items.html'
 context_object_name = 'list_items'
 @method_decorator(login_required)
 def dispatch(self, request, *args, **kwargs):
 self.list = get_object_or_404(List, pk=kwargs['list_id'])
 request = list_valid_for_user(request, self.list) # security check
 return super(ListItemsView, self).dispatch(request, *args, **kwargs)
 def get_queryset(self):
 return Item.objects.filter(list=self.list).order_by('-created_date')
 def get_context_data(self, **kwargs):
 context = super(ListItemsView, self).get_context_data(**kwargs)
 context['list'] = self.list
 return context
class ItemDetailView(DetailView):
 """Display detail for one list item"""
 template_name = 'cmv_app/item_detail.html'
 @method_decorator(login_required)
 def dispatch(self, request, *args, **kwargs):
 self.list = get_object_or_404(List, pk=kwargs['list_id'])
 self.item = get_object_or_404(Item, pk=kwargs['item_id'])
 request = list_valid_for_user(request, self.list) # security check
 request = item_valid_for_list(request, self.item, self.list) # security check
 return super(ItemDetailView, self).dispatch(request, *args, **kwargs)
 def get_object(self):
 return self.item
 def get_context_data(self, **kwargs):
 context = super(ItemDetailView, self).get_context_data(**kwargs)
 context['list'] = self.list
 return context

Answer 1

This looks pretty good -- views should generally be pretty minimal. These seem pretty short, and most of what you've done so far seems appropriate.

One pattern you might think about is using a mixin to dry things out a touch more. Eg, you have all your dispatch methods decorated login_required. If you created a LoginMixin, with and just decorated the dispatch method there, you could loose a few repetitions. Mixins are also nice to have, as you can stash other repetitive elements in them as needed.

Answer 2

If you want to cut it down you could do something like:

class MyListsView(ListView):
 model = List
 @method_decorator(login_required)
 def dispatch(self, *args, **kwargs):
 return super(MyListsView, self).dispatch(*args, **kwargs)
 def get_queryset(self):
 queryset = super(MyListsView, self).get_queryset(self)
 return queryset.filter(user=self.request.user).order_by('-last_modified')

You would then make a template under the app folder with a template called list_list.html such as

List/templates/list/list_list.html

You would also use 'list_list' as the context object in your template.