date_hierarchy

Set date_hierarchy to the name of a DateField or DateTimeField in your model, and the change list page will include a date-based drilldown navigation by that field.

Example:

date_hierarchy = 'pub_date'

form

By default a ModelForm is dynamically created for your model. It is used to create the form presented on both the add/change pages. You can easily provide your own ModelForm to override any default form behavior on the add/change pages.

For an example see the section Adding custom validation to the admin.

fieldsets

Set fieldsets to control the layout of admin “add” and “change” pages.

fieldsets is a list of two-tuples, in which each two-tuple represents a <fieldset> on the admin form page. (A <fieldset> is a “section” of the form.)

The two-tuples are in the format (name, field_options), where name is a string representing the title of the fieldset and field_options is a dictionary of information about the fieldset, including a list of fields to be displayed in it.

A full example, taken from the django.contrib.flatpages.FlatPage model:

class FlatPageAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    fieldsets = (
        (None, {
            'fields': ('url', 'title', 'content', 'sites')
        }),
        ('Advanced options', {
            'classes': ('collapse',),
            'fields': ('enable_comments', 'registration_required', 'template_name')
        }),
    )

This results in an admin page that looks like:

If fieldsets isn’t given, Django will default to displaying each field that isn’t an AutoField and has editable=True, in a single fieldset, in the same order as the fields are defined in the model.

The field_options dictionary can have the following keys:

fields

A tuple of field names to display in this fieldset. This key is required.

Example:

{
'fields': ('first_name', 'last_name', 'address', 'city', 'state'),
}

To display multiple fields on the same line, wrap those fields in their own tuple. In this example, the first_name and last_name fields will display on the same line:

{
'fields': (('first_name', 'last_name'), 'address', 'city', 'state'),
}

classes

A list containing extra CSS classes to apply to the fieldset.

Example:

{
'classes': ['wide', 'extrapretty'],
}

Two useful classes defined by the default admin-site stylesheet are collapse and wide. Fieldsets with the collapse style will be initially collapsed in the admin and replaced with a small “click to expand” link. Fieldsets with the wide style will be given extra horizontal space.

description

A string of optional extra text to be displayed at the top of each fieldset, under the heading of the fieldset.

Note that this value is not HTML-escaped when it’s displayed in the admin interface. This lets you include HTML if you so desire. Alternatively you can use plain text and django.utils.html.escape() to escape any HTML special characters.

fields

Use this option as an alternative to fieldsets if the layout does not matter and if you want to only show a subset of the available fields in the form. For example, you could define a simpler version of the admin form for the django.contrib.flatpages.FlatPage model as follows:

class FlatPageAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    fields = ('url', 'title', 'content')

In the above example, only the fields ‘url’, ‘title’ and ‘content’ will be displayed, sequencially, in the form.

filter_horizontal

Use a nifty unobtrusive JavaScript “filter” interface instead of the usability-challenged <select multiple> in the admin form. The value is a list of fields that should be displayed as a horizontal filter interface. See filter_vertical to use a vertical interface.

filter_vertical

Same as filter_horizontal, but is a vertical display of the filter interface.

list_display

Set list_display to control which fields are displayed on the change list page of the admin.

Example:

list_display = ('first_name', 'last_name')

If you don’t set list_display, the admin site will display a single column that displays the __unicode__() representation of each object.

You have four possible values that can be used in list_display:

• A field of the model. For example:

  class PersonAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
      list_display = ('first_name', 'last_name')
  

• A callable that accepts one parameter for the model instance. For example:

  def upper_case_name(obj):
      return "%s %s" % (obj.first_name, obj.last_name).upper()
  upper_case_name.short_description = 'Name'
  
  class PersonAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
      list_display = (upper_case_name,)
  

• A string representating an attribute on the ModelAdmin. This behaves the same as the callable. For example:

  class PersonAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
      list_display = ('upper_case_name',)
  
      def upper_case_name(self, obj):
        return "%s %s" % (obj.first_name, obj.last_name).upper()
      upper_case_name.short_description = 'Name'
  

• A string representating an attribute on the model. This behaves almost the same as the callable, but self in this context is the model instance. Here’s a full model example:

  class Person(models.Model):
      name = models.CharField(max_length=50)
      birthday = models.DateField()
  
      def decade_born_in(self):
          return self.birthday.strftime('%Y')[:3] + "0's"
      decade_born_in.short_description = 'Birth decade'
  
  class PersonAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
      list_display = ('name', 'decade_born_in')
  

A few special cases to note about list_display:

• If the field is a ForeignKey, Django will display the __unicode__() of the related object.

• ManyToManyField fields aren’t supported, because that would entail executing a separate SQL statement for each row in the table. If you want to do this nonetheless, give your model a custom method, and add that method’s name to list_display. (See below for more on custom methods in list_display.)

• If the field is a BooleanField or NullBooleanField, Django will display a pretty “on” or “off” icon instead of True or False.

• If the string given is a method of the model, ModelAdmin or a callable, Django will HTML-escape the output by default. If you’d rather not escape the output of the method, give the method an allow_tags attribute whose value is True.

  Here’s a full example model:

  class Person(models.Model):
      first_name = models.CharField(max_length=50)
      last_name = models.CharField(max_length=50)
      color_code = models.CharField(max_length=6)
  
      def colored_name(self):
          return '<span style="color: #%s;">%s %s</span>' % (self.color_code, self.first_name, self.last_name)
      colored_name.allow_tags = True
  
  class PersonAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
      list_display = ('first_name', 'last_name', 'colored_name')
  

• If the string given is a method of the model, ModelAdmin or a callable that returns True or False Django will display a pretty “on” or “off” icon if you give the method a boolean attribute whose value is True.

  Here’s a full example model:

  class Person(models.Model):
      first_name = models.CharField(max_length=50)
      birthday = models.DateField()
  
      def born_in_fifties(self):
          return self.birthday.strftime('%Y')[:3] == 5
      born_in_fifties.boolean = True
  
  class PersonAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
      list_display = ('name', 'born_in_fifties')
  

• The __str__() and __unicode__() methods are just as valid in list_display as any other model method, so it’s perfectly OK to do this:

  list_display = ('__unicode__', 'some_other_field')
  

• Usually, elements of list_display that aren’t actual database fields can’t be used in sorting (because Django does all the sorting at the database level).

  However, if an element of list_display represents a certain database field, you can indicate this fact by setting the admin_order_field attribute of the item.

  For example:

  class Person(models.Model):
      first_name = models.CharField(max_length=50)
      color_code = models.CharField(max_length=6)
  
      def colored_first_name(self):
          return '<span style="color: #%s;">%s</span>' % (self.color_code, self.first_name)
      colored_first_name.allow_tags = True
      colored_first_name.admin_order_field = 'first_name'
  
  class PersonAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
      list_display = ('first_name', 'colored_first_name')
  

  The above will tell Django to order by the first_name field when trying to sort by colored_first_name in the admin.

list_display_links

Set list_display_links to control which fields in list_display should be linked to the “change” page for an object.

By default, the change list page will link the first column — the first field specified in list_display — to the change page for each item. But list_display_links lets you change which columns are linked. Set list_display_links to a list or tuple of field names (in the same format as list_display) to link.

list_display_links can specify one or many field names. As long as the field names appear in list_display, Django doesn’t care how many (or how few) fields are linked. The only requirement is: If you want to use list_display_links, you must define list_display.

In this example, the first_name and last_name fields will be linked on the change list page:

class PersonAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    list_display = ('first_name', 'last_name', 'birthday')
    list_display_links = ('first_name', 'last_name')

Finally, note that in order to use list_display_links, you must define list_display, too.

list_filter

Set list_filter to activate filters in the right sidebar of the change list page of the admin. This should be a list of field names, and each specified field should be either a BooleanField, CharField, DateField, DateTimeField, IntegerField or ForeignKey.

This example, taken from the django.contrib.auth.models.User model, shows how both list_display and list_filter work:

class UserAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    list_display = ('username', 'email', 'first_name', 'last_name', 'is_staff')
    list_filter = ('is_staff', 'is_superuser')

The above code results in an admin change list page that looks like this:

(This example also has search_fields defined. See below.)

list_per_page

Set list_per_page to control how many items appear on each paginated admin change list page. By default, this is set to 100.

list_select_related

Set list_select_related to tell Django to use select_related() in retrieving the list of objects on the admin change list page. This can save you a bunch of database queries.

The value should be either True or False. Default is False.

Note that Django will use select_related(), regardless of this setting, if one of the list_display fields is a ForeignKey.

For more on select_related(), see the select_related() docs.

inlines

See InlineModelAdmin objects below.

ordering

Set ordering to specify how objects on the admin change list page should be ordered. This should be a list or tuple in the same format as a model’s ordering parameter.

If this isn’t provided, the Django admin will use the model’s default ordering.

prepopulated_fields

Set prepopulated_fields to a dictionary mapping field names to the fields it should prepopulate from:

class ArticleAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    prepopulated_fields = {"slug": ("title",)}

When set, the given fields will use a bit of JavaScript to populate from the fields assigned. The main use for this functionality is to automatically generate the value for SlugField fields from one or more other fields. The generated value is produced by concatenating the values of the source fields, and then by transforming that result into a valid slug (e.g. substituting dashes for spaces).

prepopulated_fields doesn’t accept DateTimeField, ForeignKey, nor ManyToManyField fields.

radio_fields

By default, Django’s admin uses a select-box interface (<select>) for fields that are ForeignKey or have choices set. If a field is present in radio_fields, Django will use a radio-button interface instead. Assuming group is a ForeignKey on the Person model:

class PersonAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    radio_fields = {"group": admin.VERTICAL}

You have the choice of using HORIZONTAL or VERTICAL from the django.contrib.admin module.

Don’t include a field in radio_fields unless it’s a ForeignKey or has choices set.

raw_id_fields

By default, Django’s admin uses a select-box interface (<select>) for fields that are ForeignKey. Sometimes you don’t want to incur the overhead of having to select all the related instances to display in the drop-down.

raw_id_fields is a list of fields you would like to change into a Input widget for either a ForeignKey or ManyToManyField:

class ArticleAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    raw_id_fields = ("newspaper",)

save_as

Set save_as to enable a “save as” feature on admin change forms.

Normally, objects have three save options: “Save”, “Save and continue editing” and “Save and add another”. If save_as is True, “Save and add another” will be replaced by a “Save as” button.

“Save as” means the object will be saved as a new object (with a new ID), rather than the old object.

By default, save_as is set to False.

save_on_top

Set save_on_top to add save buttons across the top of your admin change forms.

Normally, the save buttons appear only at the bottom of the forms. If you set save_on_top, the buttons will appear both on the top and the bottom.

By default, save_on_top is set to False.

search_fields

Set search_fields to enable a search box on the admin change list page. This should be set to a list of field names that will be searched whenever somebody submits a search query in that text box.

These fields should be some kind of text field, such as CharField or TextField. You can also perform a related lookup on a ForeignKey with the lookup API “follow” notation:

search_fields = ['foreign_key__related_fieldname']

When somebody does a search in the admin search box, Django splits the search query into words and returns all objects that contain each of the words, case insensitive, where each word must be in at least one of search_fields. For example, if search_fields is set to ['first_name', 'last_name'] and a user searches for john lennon, Django will do the equivalent of this SQL WHERE clause:

WHERE (first_name ILIKE '%john%' OR last_name ILIKE '%john%')
AND (first_name ILIKE '%lennon%' OR last_name ILIKE '%lennon%')

For faster and/or more restrictive searches, prefix the field name with an operator:

^

Matches the beginning of the field. For example, if search_fields is set to ['^first_name', '^last_name'] and a user searches for john lennon, Django will do the equivalent of this SQL WHERE clause:

WHERE (first_name ILIKE 'john%' OR last_name ILIKE 'john%')
AND (first_name ILIKE 'lennon%' OR last_name ILIKE 'lennon%')

This query is more efficient than the normal '%john%' query, because the database only needs to check the beginning of a column’s data, rather than seeking through the entire column’s data. Plus, if the column has an index on it, some databases may be able to use the index for this query, even though it’s a LIKE query.

=

Matches exactly, case-insensitive. For example, if search_fields is set to ['=first_name', '=last_name'] and a user searches for john lennon, Django will do the equivalent of this SQL WHERE clause:

WHERE (first_name ILIKE 'john' OR last_name ILIKE 'john')
AND (first_name ILIKE 'lennon' OR last_name ILIKE 'lennon')

Note that the query input is split by spaces, so, following this example, it’s currently not possible to search for all records in which first_name is exactly 'john winston' (containing a space).

@

Performs a full-text match. This is like the default search method but uses an index. Currently this is only available for MySQL.

save_model(self, request, obj, form, change)

The save_model method is given the HttpRequest, a model instance, a ModelForm instance and a boolean value based on whether it is adding or changing the object. Here you can do any pre- or post-save operations.

For example to attach request.user to the object prior to saving:

class ArticleAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    def save_model(self, request, obj, form, change):
        obj.user = request.user
        obj.save()

save_formset(self, request, form, formset, change)

The save_formset method is given the HttpRequest, the parent ModelForm instance and a boolean value baesed on whether it is adding or changing the parent object.

For example to attach request.user to each changed formset model instance:

class ArticleAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    def save_formset(self, request, form, formset, change):
        instances = formset.save(commit=False)
        for instance in instances:
            instance.user = request.user
            instance.save()
        formset.save_m2m()

model

The model in which the inline is using. This is required.

fk_name

The name of the foreign key on the model. In most cases this will be dealt with automatically, but fk_name must be specified explicitly if there are more than one foreign key to the same parent model.

formset

This defaults to BaseInlineFormSet. Using your own formset can give you many possibilities of customization. Inlines are built around model formsets.

form

The value for form is inherited from ModelAdmin. This is what is passed through to formset_factory when creating the formset for this inline.

extra

This controls the number of extra forms the formset will display in addition to the initial forms. See the formsets documentation for more information.

max_num

This controls the maximum number of forms to show in the inline. This doesn’t directly correlate to the number of objects, but can if the value is small enough. See max_num in formsets for more information.

raw_id_fields

By default, Django’s admin uses a select-box interface (<select>) for fields that are ForeignKey. Sometimes you don’t want to incur the overhead of having to select all the related instances to display in the drop-down.

raw_id_fields is a list of fields you would like to change into a Input widget for either a ForeignKey or ManyToManyField:

class BookInline(admin.TabularInline):
    model = Book
    raw_id_fields = ("pages",)

template

The template used to render the inline on the page.

verbose_name

An override to the verbose_name found in the model’s inner Meta class.

verbose_name_plural

An override to the verbose_name_plural found in the model’s inner Meta class.