django CMS Link

July 8, 2026 · View on GitHub

=============== django CMS Link

|pypi| |coverage| |python| |django| |djangocms|

django CMS Link is a plugin for django CMS <https://django-cms.org>_ that lets you add links to your site — to other pages, external URLs, files, phone numbers, email addresses, and more.

The plugin supports child plugins: if you add another plugin as a child, its content is used as the link's content instead of the link name.

This addon is compatible with Divio Cloud <http://divio.com>_.

.. image:: preview.gif

Requirements

django CMS Link has a weak dependency on django Filer: if django Filer <http://django-filer.readthedocs.io/en/latest/installation.html>_ is installed and configured, you will also be able to link to files.

  • django CMS 3.11 or higher
  • djangocms-attributes-field 1.0 or higher
  • django Filer (optional, for file links)

See dependencies in the pyproject.toml <https://github.com/django-cms/djangocms-link/blob/master/pyproject.toml>_ file for the full list of dependencies.

Installation

For a manual install:

  • run pip install djangocms-link
  • add djangocms_link to your INSTALLED_APPS
  • run python manage.py migrate djangocms_link

Configuration

Note that the provided templates are very minimal by design. You are encouraged to adapt and override them to your project's requirements.

This addon provides a default template for all instances. You can provide additional template choices by adding a DJANGOCMS_LINK_TEMPLATES setting:

.. code-block:: python

DJANGOCMS_LINK_TEMPLATES = [
    ('feature', _('Featured Version')),
]

You'll need to create the feature folder inside templates/djangocms_link/ otherwise you will get a template does not exist error. You can do this by copying the default folder inside that directory and renaming it to feature.

By default, django CMS Link provides three major link types: internal, external, and file link (if django-filer is installed).

Phone links or email links can be entered by using the tel: or mailto: scheme, respectively, in the external link field.

By changing the DJANGOCMS_LINK_ALLOWED_LINK_TYPES setting you can limit the type of links accepted. The default is::

DJANGOCMS_LINK_ALLOWED_LINK_TYPES = [
    'internal_link',  # Pages and other models
    'external_link',  # Hand-typed URLs
    'file_link',      # Files from django-filer
    'tel',            # Phone numbers as external links using the tel: scheme
    'mailto',         # Email addresses as external links using the mailto: scheme
    'anchor',         # Anchors in the current page as external links using #
]

Linkable models

Added in version 5:

By default, django CMS Link will autodetect which Django or django CMS models it can create internal links to. To make a model appear in the list of internal links, you need to

  • register a model admin for the model and provide a search_fields attribute. django CMS Link uses the same search logic as the Django admin.
  • provide a get_absolute_url() method on the model. This method should return the URL of the model instance.

If you do not want to use auto detection, you can provide a list of models in the DJANGOCMS_LINKABLE_MODELS setting using dotted strings::

DJANGOCMS_LINKABLE_MODELS = [
    'myapp.mymodel',
]

Note: Page objects are always linkable.

django CMS Link will use the model admin's get_queryset method to retrieve the list of objects. If you want to add custom filters, sorting or site handling, you can add a get_link_queryset method to the model admin::

class MyModelAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    def get_link_queryset(self, request, site_id):
        """Only used by djangocms-link: returns queryset to select link targets from."""
        qs = self.get_queryset(request)
        return qs.filter(is_public=True)

Large search-sets

If you have a large number of internally linkable models, you can use the DJANGOCMS_LINK_MINIMUM_INPUT_LENGTH setting to require a minimum number of characters typed before the search is triggered. The higher the number, the smaller the average result set size. The default is 0::

# Require at least 2 characters to be typed before searching for pages
DJANGOCMS_LINK_MINIMUM_INPUT_LENGTH = 2

By default django CMS Link will paginate the search results. You can change the page size by setting the DJANGOCMS_LINK_PAGINATE_BY setting. The default is 50::

# Show 100 results per "page"
DJANGOCMS_LINK_PAGINATE_BY = 100

Note that in the admin, paginated search results repeat the model's verbose name.

Site-selectors

For multi-site installations, django CMS Link provides a site selector. It can be switched on or off by setting the DJANGOCMS_LINK_SITE_SELECTOR setting to True or False. The default is False::

# Enable the site selector
DJANGOCMS_LINK_SITE_SELECTOR = True

Non-standard hostnames

To support environments where non-standard URLs would otherwise work, this project supports the defining of an additional RegEx pattern for validating the host-portion of the URL.

For example:

.. code-block:: python

# RFC1123 Pattern:
DJANGOCMS_LINK_INTRANET_HOSTNAME_PATTERN = r'[a-z,0-9,-]{1,15}'

This might accept a URL such as:

.. code-block:: html

http://SEARCHHOST/?q=some+search+string

If left undefined, the normal Django URLValidator will be used.

Link fields

Added in version 5:

django CMS Link provides a re-usable link model field, form field and form widget. This allows you to use the link field in your own models or admin forms.

.. code-block:: python

from djangocms_link.fields import LinkField, LinkFormField, LinkWidget

class MyModel(models.Model):
    link = LinkField()  # or LinkField(blank=True) for optional links

class MyForm(forms.Form):
    link = LinkFormField(required=False)

LinkField is a subclass of JSONField and stores the link data as djangocms_link.helpers.LinkDict, a direct subclass of dict. (An empty link will be {}.)

To render the link field in a template, convert the LinkDict to a string, use the LinkDict property url, or use the new template tag to_url. The type property returns the link type::

{# Variant 1 #}
{% if obj.link %}
    <a href="{{ obj.link }}">Link available</a>  {# str(obj.link) gives the URL #}
{% endif %}

{# Variant 2 #}
{% if obj.link %}
    <a href="{{ obj.link.url }}">Link</a>  {# explicitly get the URL #}
{% endif %}

{% if obj.link.type == "external_link" %}  {# evaluate link type #}
    <a href="{{ obj.link.url }}">External link</a>
{% endif %}

To turn the LinkField's LinkDict dictionary into a URL in Python code, use the url property. (It will hit the database if needed. Results are cached.)::

obj = MyModel.objects.first()
url = obj.link.url

A LinkField used inside a CMS plugin will automatically show internal link targets in the language of the plugin (which might differ from the edit dialog's language). This follows the principle the all content in the dialog is shown in the object's language.

If you use LinkField in your own models, the default will be the current language.

Link models

The to_url template filter and the get_obj_link helper function can be used to get the full URL for any Django model instance. This is useful on multi-site installations. to_url assumes that the model instance's site is found in its site_id attribute (falling back to node.site_id). If the model belongs to a different site than the current one, it prepends the domain name of that site.

Example::

{% load djangocms_link_tags %}

{% if obj %}
    <a href="{{ obj|to_url }}">Link to object</a>  {# will include the site domain if needed #}
{% endif %}

Running tests

You can run tests by executing::

virtualenv env
source env/bin/activate
pip install -r tests/requirements.txt
pytest

Upgrading from version 4 or lower

django CMS Link 5 is a rewrite of the plugin. If you are updating from version 4 or lower, you will notice

  • the new re-usable link widget, greatly simplifying the user interface
  • an improved management of multi-site situations, essentially avoiding the unnecessary addition of the host name to the URL in plugin instances that are not in a page placeholder (such as links on aliases or static placeholders)
  • a re-usable admin endpoint for querying available links, which can be used by other apps such as djangocms-text
  • links are now generated by template tags or template filters instead of the model's get_link() method. This allows multiple links in future models. The get_link() method on the plugin's model is still available for backwards compatibility.

Migrations should automatically convert existing plugin instances to the new model fields.

WARNING: We strongly recommend backing up your database before updating to version 5. The migration is tested, but it does remove unused fields from the database. If you encounter any issues, please report them on GitHub <https://github.com/django-cms/djangocms-link/issues>_.

Contributing

This is an open-source project. We'll be delighted to receive your feedback in the form of issues and pull requests. Before submitting your pull request, please review our contribution guidelines <http://docs.django-cms.org/en/latest/contributing/index.html>_.

We're grateful to all contributors who have helped create and maintain this package. Contributors are listed in the contributors <https://github.com/django-cms/djangocms-link/graphs/contributors>_ section.

One of the easiest contributions you can make is helping to translate this addon on Transifex <https://www.transifex.com/projects/p/djangocms-link/>_.

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.. |django| image:: https://img.shields.io/pypi/frameworkversions/django/djangocms-link :alt: PyPI - Django Versions from Framework Classifiers :target: https://www.djangoproject.com/

.. |djangocms| image:: https://img.shields.io/pypi/frameworkversions/django-cms/djangocms-link :alt: PyPI - django CMS Versions from Framework Classifiers :target: https://www.django-cms.org/