Configuration¶

Configure django-cartouche in your local/development settings file (e.g., settings/local.py or settings/dev.py).

Settings¶

Add cartouche to your installed apps and add the middleware after LocaleMiddleware:

# settings/local.py

from .base import *

DEBUG = True

INSTALLED_APPS += [
    "cartouche",
]

MIDDLEWARE += [
    "cartouche.middleware.CartoucheMiddleware",  # Must be after LocaleMiddleware
]

Middleware Order

CartoucheMiddleware must be placed after LocaleMiddleware in the middleware list. The middleware relies on locale detection being already configured.

URLs¶

Conditionally include the cartouche URLs in your urls.py:

from django.conf import settings

urlpatterns = [
    # your existing patterns...
]

if settings.DEBUG:
    urlpatterns += [
        path("cartouche/", include("cartouche.urls")),
    ]

HTML Setup¶

Set the lang attribute on your <html> element for locale detection:

<html lang="{{ LANGUAGE_CODE }}">

This tells django-cartouche which language's .po file to update when you edit a translation.

Usage¶

Once configured, run your development server:

python manage.py runserver

Translated strings appear with visual indicators:

Blue underline: Translated strings (msgstr differs from msgid)
Amber underline: Untranslated strings (msgstr equals msgid or is empty)

Hover over any string to see it highlighted. Click to edit inline. Changes are saved to your .po files and messages are recompiled automatically.

Development Only

The editor only activates when DEBUG=True. Following the configuration above ensures django-cartouche is never present in production.