Customize Django Admin Interface

Django admin by default is highly responsive GUI, which offers various features and an overall CRUD application to help developers and users. Moreover, Django admin can be customized to fulfill one’s needs such as showing fields on the home page of the table, etc. In this article, we will discuss how to enhance Django-admin Interface.

Project structure looks like:

Let us create an app called state which has one model with the same name(state). When we register app to admin.py it shows like.

state/model.py

from django.db import models
from django.utils import timezone

class State(models.Model):
    name = models.CharField(max_length = 50)
    is_active = models.IntegerField(default = 1,
                                   blank = True,
                                    null = True,
                                    help_text ='1->Active, 0->Inactive',
                                    choices =(
                                    (1, 'Active'), (0, 'Inactive')
                                    ))
    created_on = models.DateTimeField(default = timezone.now)
    updated_on = models.DateTimeField(default = timezone.now,
                                    null = True,
                                    blank = True
                                    )
    def __str__(self):
        return self.name

    class Meta:
        db_table = 'state'

state/admin.py:

from django.contrib import admin
from .models import State

admin.site.register(State)

Check it in the django admin interface

Now lets’ customize django admin according to available options.

Customize Django Admin Interface

1. Change model name:
If you want to change name of model which is States here so open model.py file and add verbose_name attribute in meta section.

state/model.py

from django.db import models
from django.utils import timezone

class State(models.Model):
    name = models.CharField(max_length = 50)
    is_active = models.IntegerField(default = 1,
                                   blank = True,
                                    null = True,
                                    help_text ='1->Active, 0->Inactive',
                                    choices =(
                                    (1, 'Active'), (0, 'Inactive')
                                    ))
    created_on = models.DateTimeField(default = timezone.now)
    updated_on = models.DateTimeField(default = timezone.now,
                                    null = True,
                                    blank = True
                                    )
    def __str__(self):
        return self.name
    class Meta:
        db_table = 'state'
        # Add verbose name
        verbose_name = 'State List'

Output :

2. By default django admin shows only object name in listing.

One can show multiple fields data from model. Add some lines of code in your admin.py file.

state/admin.py:

from django.contrib import admin
from .models import State

class StateAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    list_display = ('name', 'active', 'created_on')

    def active(self, obj):
        return obj.is_active == 1

    active.boolean = True

admin.site.register(State, StateAdmin)

Output :

3. By default there is only one option which is delete option.
One can add more option on Action dropdown:

state/admin.py:

from django.contrib import admin
from django.contrib import messages
from .models import State

class StateAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    list_display = ('name', 'active', 'created_on')

    def active(self, obj):
        return obj.is_active == 1

    active.boolean = True

    def make_active(modeladmin, request, queryset):
        queryset.update(is_active = 1)
        messages.success(request, "Selected Record(s) Marked as Active Successfully !!")

    def make_inactive(modeladmin, request, queryset):
        queryset.update(is_active = 0)
        messages.success(request, "Selected Record(s) Marked as Inactive Successfully !!")

    admin.site.add_action(make_active, "Make Active")
    admin.site.add_action(make_inactive, "Make Inactive")

admin.site.register(State, StateAdmin)

Output:

4. Disable Delete option:

state/admin.py:

from django.contrib import admin
from django.contrib import messages
from .models import State

class StateAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    list_display = ('name', 'active', 'created_on')

    def active(self, obj):
        return obj.is_active == 1

    active.boolean = True

    def make_active(modeladmin, request, queryset):
        queryset.update(is_active = 1)
        messages.success(request, "Selected Record(s) Marked as Active Successfully !!")

    def make_inactive(modeladmin, request, queryset):
        queryset.update(is_active = 0)
        messages.success(request, "Selected Record(s) Marked as Inactive Successfully !!")

    admin.site.add_action(make_active, "Make Active")
    admin.site.add_action(make_inactive, "Make Inactive")

    def has_delete_permission(self, request, obj = None):
        return False

admin.site.register(State, StateAdmin)

Output:

5. Remove Add option:

state/admin.py:

from django.contrib import admin
from .models import State

class StateAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    list_display = ('name', 'active', 'created_on')

    def active(self, obj):
        return obj.is_active == 1

    active.boolean = True

    def has_add_permission(self, request):
        return False

admin.site.register(State, StateAdmin)