Unlike a traditional web hosting environment, Google App Engine does not serve
files directly out of your application’s source directory unless configured
to do so. We named our template file index.html
, but this does not
automatically make the file available at the URL /index.html
.
But there are many cases where you want to serve static files directly to the web browser. Images, CSS stylesheets, JavaScript code, movies and Flash animations are all typically stored with a web application and served directly to the browser. You can tell App Engine to serve specific files directly without your having to code your own handler.
Edit helloworld/app.yaml
and replace its contents with the following:
application: helloworld
version: 1
runtime: python27
api_version: 1
threadsafe: true
handlers:
- url: /stylesheets
static_dir: stylesheets
- url: /.*
script: helloworld.app
The new handlers
section defines two handlers for URLs. When App Engine
receives a request with a URL beginning with /stylesheets
, it maps the
remainder of the path to files in the stylesheets directory and, if an
appropriate file is found, the contents of the file are returned to the client.
All other URLs match the /
path, and are handled by the helloworld.py
script.
By default, App Engine serves static files using a MIME type based on the
filename extension. For example, a file with a name ending in .css
will be
served with a MIME type of text/css
. You can configure explicit MIME types
with additional options.
URL handler path patterns are tested in the order they appear in app.yaml
,
from top to bottom. In this case, the /stylesheets
pattern will match
before the /.*
pattern will for the appropriate paths. For more information
on URL mapping and other options you can specify in app.yaml
, see
the app.yaml reference.
Create the directory helloworld/stylesheets
. In this new directory, create
a new file named main.css
with the following contents:
body {
font-family: Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif;
background-color: #DDDDDD;
}
Finally, edit helloworld/index.html
and insert the following lines just
after the <html>
line at the top:
<head>
<link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="/stylesheets/main.css" />
</head>
Reload the page in your browser. The new version uses the stylesheet.
The time has come to reveal your finished application to the world.
Continue to Uploading Your Application.