Filters and Pagination with Django Function-Based Views

I'm working on my first Django program and would like to create a template including filtering and pagination functions that could be used simultaneously. This is what I have so far:

models.py

class Player (models.Model):
    name = models.CharField(max_length=32)
    surname = models.CharField(max_length=32)
    
    def __str__(self):
        return f"{self.name} {self.surname}"
            
    class Meta:
        verbose_name_plural = "Players"

views.py

def GetPlayers(request):
    players = Player.objects.all().values()
    
    pn = request.GET.get('name')
    if pn != '' and pn is not None:
        players = players.filter(name__icontains=pn)

    page_num = request.GET.get('page', 1)
    paginator = Paginator(players, 2)
    page_obj = paginator.get_page(page_num)
    
    template = loader.get_template('players.html')
    context = {
        'players' : players,
        'page_obj' : page_obj,
    }
    return HttpResponse(template.render(context, request))

players.html

{% block content %}
  <div class="mycard">
    <h1>Players</h1>
    <div class="filters">
      <form action="" method="GET">
        <div class="row">
          <div class="col-xl-3">
            <label>Name:</label>
            <input type="text" class="form-control" placeholder="name" name="name" {% if name %} value = "{{ name }}" {% endif %}>
          </div>
          <div class="col-xl-2" style="padding-top: 2%;">
            <button type="submit" class="btn custom-btn">Filter</button>
          </div>
        </div>
      </form>
    </div>
    <p/>
    <div style="overflow-x:auto;">
      <table>
        <thead>
          <th>Name</th>
          <th>Surname</th>
        </thead>
        <tbody>
          {% for x in page_obj %}
            <td>{{ x.name }}</td>          
            <td>{{ x.surname }}</td>
          </tr>
          {% endfor %}
        </tbody>
      </table>
      {% include "pagination.html" %}
    </div>
  </div>
{% endblock %}

Let's imagine I have 6 players called "John", "Mark", "Phil", "Jason", "Jane" and "Juliet". If I don't apply any name filtering, they will be grouped as follows:

• Page 1: "John" and "Mark"
• Page 2: "Phil" and "Jason"
• Page 3: "Jane" and "Juliet"

Based on this, if I filter by names containing "J" in the filter text field, I would expect to have:

• Page 1: "John" and "Jason"
• Page 2: "Jane" and "Juliet"

Page 1 works as intended, but when I click on the link to navigate to page 2, the filter seems to be reset and I got "Phil" and "Jason"; besides, a link to the third page becomes available, including "Jane and Juliet" as if there was no filter applied at all.

How could I keep filters applied while navigating through the queryset pages?

You need to append your filter as a query param to the pagination URL. For that it is necessary to have it inside the context.

views.py (a minor change to shorten and make it a bit more clean)

def GetPlayers(request):
    players = Player.objects.all().values()

    pn = request.GET.get("name", None)
    if pn:
        players = players.filter(name__icontains=pn)

    paginator = Paginator(players, 2)
    page_num = request.GET.get("page")
    page_obj = paginator.get_page(page_num)

    ctx = {"players": players, "page_obj": page_obj, "pn": pn}
    return render(request, "players.html", ctx)

pagination.html

<div class="pagination">
  <span class="step-links">
    {% if page_obj.has_previous %}
    <a href="?page=1{% if pn %}&name={{pn}}{% endif %}">&laquo; first</a>
    <a href="?page={{ page_obj.previous_page_number }}{% if pn %}&name={{pn}}{% endif %}">previous</a>
    {% endif %}

    <span class="current">
      Page {{ page_obj.number }} of {{ page_obj.paginator.num_pages }}.
    </span>

    {% if page_obj.has_next %}
    <a href="?page={{ page_obj.next_page_number }}{% if pn %}&name={{pn}}{% endif %}">next</a>
    <a href="?page={{ page_obj.paginator.num_pages }}{% if pn %}&name={{pn}}{% endif %}">last &raquo;</a>
    {% endif %}
  </span>
</div>

Note: As a good practice (name convention), functions and variables are often named in snake_case