Wagtail - display the three latest posts only on the homepage

Question

I have created a model to show posts on the homepage, but only want the three latest posts to show. Do I need to use pagination for this, or is there a hook I can use instead?

I was thinking I could use pagination and just not include the 'next' button, but that seems somewhat like a hack, and I want to do this the right way.

I am still very new to Django and Python and am going to continue experimenting, but if someone could point me in the right direction I would be very grateful.

Here's the HomePage model:

from __future__ import unicode_literals

from django.db import models

from wagtail.wagtailcore.models import Page
from wagtail.wagtailcore.fields import RichTextField
from wagtail.wagtailadmin.edit_handlers import FieldPanel

from blog.models import BlogPage


class HomePage(Page):
    def blogs(self):
        blogs = BlogPage.objects.all()
        blogs = blogs.order_by('-date')
        return blogs

Here's the BlogPage model:

class BlogPage(Page):
body = RichTextField(verbose_name=_('body'), blank=True)
tags = ClusterTaggableManager(through=BlogPageTag, blank=True)
date = models.DateField(
    _("Post date"), default=datetime.datetime.today,
    help_text=_("This date may be displayed on the blog post. It is not "
                "used to schedule posts to go live at a later date.")
)
header_image = models.ForeignKey(
    'wagtailimages.Image',
    null=True,
    blank=True,
    on_delete=models.SET_NULL,
    related_name='+',
    verbose_name=_('Header image')
)
author = models.ForeignKey(
    settings.AUTH_USER_MODEL,
    blank=True, null=True,
    limit_choices_to=limit_author_choices,
    verbose_name=_('Author'),
    on_delete=models.SET_NULL,
    related_name='author_pages',
)

search_fields = Page.search_fields + [
    index.SearchField('body'),
]
blog_categories = models.ManyToManyField(
    BlogCategory, through=BlogCategoryBlogPage, blank=True)

settings_panels = [
    MultiFieldPanel([
        FieldRowPanel([
            FieldPanel('go_live_at'),
            FieldPanel('expire_at'),
        ], classname="label-above"),
    ], 'Scheduled publishing', classname="publishing"),
    FieldPanel('date'),
    FieldPanel('author'),
]

def save_revision(self, *args, **kwargs):
    if not self.author:
        self.author = self.owner
    return super(BlogPage, self).save_revision(*args, **kwargs)

def get_absolute_url(self):
    return self.url

def get_blog_index(self):
    # Find closest ancestor which is a blog index
    return self.get_ancestors().type(BlogIndexPage).last()

def get_context(self, request, *args, **kwargs):
    context = super(BlogPage, self).get_context(request, *args, **kwargs)
    context['blogs'] = self.get_blog_index().blogindexpage.blogs
    context = get_blog_context(context)
    context['COMMENTS_APP'] = COMMENTS_APP
    return context

class Meta:
    verbose_name = _('Blog page')
    verbose_name_plural = _('Blog pages')

parent_page_types = ['blog.BlogIndexPage']


BlogPage.content_panels = [
    FieldPanel('title', classname="full title"),
    MultiFieldPanel([
        FieldPanel('tags'),
        InlinePanel('categories', label=_("Categories")),
    ], heading="Tags and Categories"),
    ImageChooserPanel('header_image'),
    FieldPanel('body', classname="full"),
]

...and here's the HTML:

     <div class="row">
      <div class="col-md-10 col-md-offset-1 blocks home-page-posts">
        {% for blog in page.blogs %}
      <div class="col-md-4">
        <a class="blog-post-link" href="{% pageurl blog %}">
          <h3>{{ blog.title }}</h3>
        </a>
      <div class="blog-intro">
          {{ blog.body|richtext|truncatewords_html:50 }}
            <a class="read-more" href="{% pageurl blog %}">Read More &raquo;</a>
      </div>
    </div>
        {% endfor %}
    </div>
  </div>

Answer 1

As documented at https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.11/topics/db/queries/#limiting-querysets , you can use array-slicing syntax to limit the queryset:

class HomePage(Page):
    def blogs(self):
        blogs = BlogPage.objects.all()
        blogs = blogs.order_by('-date')[:3]
        return blogs

Answer 2

for wagtail there are some default fields, like: first_published_at, last_published_at, latest_revision_created_at. See more in official doc

class HomePage(Page):
  # get recent blogs (wagtail has by default first_published_at field)
  def get_recent_blogs(self):
    max_count = 5 # max count for displaying post
    return BlogPage.objects.all().order_by('-first_published_at')[:max_count]

  # add this to custom context 
  def get_context(self, request):
    context = super(HomePage, self).get_context(request)
    context['blogs'] = self.get_recent_blogs()
    return context