A common need I have for Django’s admin interface is to show a little more data for convenience right on the edit page. For example showing a link to a foreign key’s edit page right there. The way I do this is by setting the help_text field in the render_change_form function. I create a new function in my admin class to override render_change_form
class whateverAdmin(admin.modelAdmin):
def render_change_form(self, request, context, *args, **kwargs):
context['adminform'].form.fields['someField'].help_text = "Go to edit page " + str(context['original'].anyFunction()) + " (will discard changes)"
return super(whateverAdmin, self).render_change_form(request, context, args, kwargs)
the anyFunction() is just a function I made to display a URL in my model. Notice the allow_tags line to allow the function to return the html <a> tag
def anyFunction(self):
try:
field = self.someField
urlRes = urlresolvers.reverse('admin:appName_someField_change', args=(field.id,))
return '</a><a href="http://example.com' + urlRes + '">' + str(field) + '</a>'
except:
return ""
anyFunction.allow_tags = True
This link is then very convenient when using the admin interface just to look up information. The render_change_from function is also useful to editing about the admin page. I use it to modify queryset’s for foreign key data as well.
Django Hack: adding extra data to admin interface
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3 responses to “Django Hack: adding extra data to admin interface”
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Can you explain some more how you “use it to modify queryset’s for foreign key data as well.”?
Thanks!
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Derek, I sometimes modify the possible options on a foreign key’s dropdown box in the admin site. In my admin.py file I can add something like this
def render_change_form(self, request, context, *args, **kwargs):
compUsers = User.objects.filter(Q(groups__name=’company’))
context[‘adminform’].form.fields[‘login’].queryset = compUsersWithout this the ‘login’ foreign key field options were every user. Now it’s only users who are part of the group ‘company’
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This way of building up HTML in a function is insecure, and could easily open you up to XSS attacks (or anyone who copy-pastes this code). It would be far better to use format_html – https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.6/ref/utils/#django.utils.html.format_html
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