Submitting Django Form In Custom HTML - django-forms

Question

I am a newb to django forms and I am trying to create a very specific user interface, so I can't use model forms (or can I?)
I created a custom form that looks like this:
but it won't commit to the db?
This is my html form:
<form method="POST" action='/create/' id="big_idea_form" class="tabscontent">{% csrf_token %}
<label class="tabpage" id="tabpage_1" ><span>next</span><p>Give it a name!</p><input type="text" id="name" placeholder="Type your title here" onblur='changeIt("name", "name_span")'/></label>
<label class="tabpage" id="tabpage_2" ><p>What is it about?</p><input type="text" id="subtitle" name="subtitle" placeholder="Type your subtitle here" onblur='changeIt("subtitle", "subtitle_span")'/></label>
<label class="tabpage" id="tabpage_3" ><p>Why is it important?</p><textarea id="description" name= "description" cols="42" rows="5" placeholder="this can be any description but it becomes more interesting if you can explain why it is important as part of your description" onblur='changeIt("description", "description_span")'></textarea></label>
<label class="tabpage" id="tabpage_4" ><p id="success_title">What is considered success?</p><textarea id="success" name="success" cols="42" rows="5" placeholder="describe what sucess means to your students... what does mastery look like?" onblur='changeIt("success", "success_span")'></textarea></label>
<input type="submit" value="Submit"/>
</form>
This is my form:
from django import forms
import urlparse
from models import Lesson
class CreateLesson(forms.Form):
name=forms.CharField()
subtitle=forms.CharField(required=False)
creator=forms.CharField() #automate
description=forms.CharField()
success=forms.CharField()
unit=forms.CharField(required=False)
public=forms.BooleanField()
def save(self, request):
data=self.cleaned_data
Lesson.creator = request.user
Lesson.name=data.get('name', '')
Lesson.subtitle=data.get('subtitle', '')
Lesson.topic=data.get('topic', '')
Lesson.description=data.get('description', '')
Lesson.unit=data.get('unit', '')
Lesson.public=data.get('public', True)
Lesson.save()
return Lesson
And here is my view:
from django.shortcuts import render
from django.http import HttpResponseRedirect
from forms import CreateLesson
def Create_Lesson(request):
if request.method == 'POST': # If the form has been submitted...
form = CreateLesson(request.POST) # A form bound to the POST data
if form.is_valid(): # All validation rules pass
form.save()
return HttpResponseRedirect('/create/') # Redirect after POST
else:
form = CreateLesson() # An unbound form
return render(request, 'create_lesson/new_ideas.html', {
'form': form,
})

Answer 1

problem was that the form was not validating because there were fields in the model not represented on the form...
i simplified the form by using ModelForm and exclude as such
forms.py
class CreateLessonModel(forms.ModelForm):
class Meta:
model = Lesson
exclude =('unit', 'slug', 'topic', 'public', 'created_date', 'creator')
views.py
from django.shortcuts import render
from django.http import HttpResponseRedirect
from forms import CreateLessonModel
from django.template.defaultfilters import slugify
def Create_Lesson(request):
if request.method == "POST": # If the form has been submitted...
form = CreateLessonModel(request.POST) # A form bound to the POST data
if form.is_valid(): # All validation rules pass
lesson = form.save(commit=False)
lesson.creator = request.user
lesson.slug = slugify(lesson.name)
lesson.save()
return HttpResponseRedirect('') # Redirect after POST
else:
form = CreateLessonModel() # An unbound form
return render(request, 'create_lesson/new_ideas.html', {
'form': form,
})