Paragraph on over-riding base_html can be misread as to WHAT needs to be changed...

[Pyrrhicv]

In Django 1.7 (1.6 is the same) Tutorial 2 - Section: "Customizing your project’s templates" At approximately para. #5it reads:

Then, just edit the file and replace {{ site_header|default:_('Django administration') }} with your own site’s name as you see fit, e.g. {{ _('Polls administration') }}. We use this approach to teach you how to override templates. In an actual project, you would probably use the django.contrib.admin.AdminSite.site_header attribute to more easily make this particular customization.

I would recommend providing a little more of the code surrounding (or just provide all of the small amount of code in base_site.html) to give context to newbie tutorial followers (like me!). What happened to me and it cost me many person-hours was that I read the text as meaning that you replaced what was in the single quotes and the rest was for context. However, I finally found a post on stack overflow in a reference to another post that showed that the whole works had to be replaced. I think it may depend on the state of mind or possibly other variables (such as the 'site header default' portion of the material to be replaced that suggests to the newbies following the tutorial that that is context and not to be replaced. Bottom line: when people read this, based on what I found in the fora, it is not uncommon that they do not read it as replacing all of the code. The instant I read someone else's explanation the original text made 100% sense - but that does not help the poor noob who reads it and mis-constructs what s/he is to do.

Finally, the 'e.g. {{ _('Polls administration') }}.' is not clear to a newbie either. Replacing '{{ _('Polls administration') }}' with '{{ _('Polls administration') }}' throws an error on my CentOS 6.5/django1.7/Python3.4x install. The solution that worked for me is cut&pasted here:

{% block title %}{{ title }} | Django POLLS Site Admin {% endblock %}

Note: NO double curly brackets around "Django POLLS Site Admin" - so...I think that the 'e.g' may be deceptive too.

Just for the record my site-name line in my base_site.html for the tutorial reads:

<h1 id="site-name"><a href="{% url 'admin:index' %}">Django Polls Administration [@ mysites proj. dir]</a></h1>

...also no curly brackets around the text to be displayed.

Bottom line: the tutorial is unclear here, especially about the mysterious curly brackets we newbies are just, barely, getting used to at this point in tutorial 2!

To add clarity for us newbies, the text for this paragraph might read:

Then, just edit the file and replace the line {% block title %}{{ title }} | {{ site_title|default:_('Django admin') }}{% endblock %} with your own site’s name as you see fit, e.g.{% block title %}{{ title }} | Django Polls Administration {% endblock %}. We use this approach to teach you how to override templates. In an actual project, you would probably use the django.contrib.admin.AdminSite.site_header attribute to more easily make this particular customization.

It would be nice to know for us poor newbies WHY just replacing the text in 'site_title|default:_('Django admin') ' does not work. One would think that the text within quotes could be changed to your heart's content and the tutorial text implies that this is the case - but it does not work, at least not on my copy of django!

I hope that all of this is of some use and I am not just making a fool of myself.

Best,

Pyrrhic