Figured out another way to do it, elegant enough thanks to this answer : https://stackoverflow.com/a/17614086/34871
Given an url pattern such as:
url(r'^some-url', "myapp.myview", name="my_view_name"),
my_view_name is available to the template through request ( remember you need to use a RequestContext – which is implicit when using render_to_response )
Then menu items may look like :
<li class="{% if request.resolver_match.url_name == "my_view_name" %}active{% endif %}"><a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/9793576/{% url"my_view_name" %}">Shortcut1</a></li>
<li class="{% if request.resolver_match.url_name == "my_view_name2" %}active{% endif %}"><a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/9793576/{% url"my_view_name2" %}">Shortcut2</a></li>
etc.
This way, the url can change and it still works if url parameters vary, and you don’t need to keep a list of menu items elsewhere.