Django Hack: adding extra data to admin interface
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 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.