django-genericadmin

A simple django app to make the lookup of generic models easier.

Installation

Run the usual

pip install django-genericadmin

and add it to your INSTALLED_APPS in your project's settings.py. There is no need to run manage.py syncdb or manage.py migrate because django-genericadmin does not have any models.

INSTALLED_APPS = (
   ...
   'genericadmin',
   ...
)

If you are using the staticfiles app, then run manage.py collectstatic and you should be good to go.

If you don't know what I'm talking about or your django version < 1.3, then you should link or copy genericadmin/media/js/ to your asset directory and set GENERICADMIN_JS to a the relative destination of your just copied files.

Usage

To use django-genericadmin your model admin class must inherit from GenericAdminModelAdmin.

So a model admin like

class NavBarEntryAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    pass

admin.site.register(NavBarEntry, NavBarEntryAdmin)

becomes

from genericadmin.admin import GenericAdminModelAdmin

class NavBarEntryAdmin(GenericAdminModelAdmin):
    pass

admin.site.register(NavBarEntry, NavBarEntryAdmin)

That's it.

Provided admin classes

A short overview of the admin classes and their uses provided by django-genericadmin.

• GenericAdminModelAdmin — The admin for a standard Django model that has at least one generic foreign relation.

• TabularInlineWithGeneric and StackedInlineWithGeneric — Normal inline admins for models that have a generic relation and are edited inline.

• GenericTabularInline and GenericStackedInline — Used to provide True Polymorphic Relationships (see below) and generic relations in the admin. Also see the Django docs here.

Inline Usage

To use django-genericadmin with admin inlines, your models must inherit from GenericAdminModelAdmin as described above:

from genericadmin.admin import GenericAdminModelAdmin

class NavBarEntryAdmin(GenericAdminModelAdmin):
   	pass

admin.site.register(NavBarEntry, NavBarEntryAdmin)

Additionally the inline classes must inherit from either StackedInlineWithGeneric or TabularInlineWithGeneric:

from genericadmin.admin import GenericAdminModelAdmin, TabularInlineWithGeneric

class PagesInline(TabularInlineWithGeneric):
   	model = ...

class NavBarEntryAdmin(GenericAdminModelAdmin):
   	inlines = [PagesInline, ]

...

Note that you can't mix and match. If you're going to use a generic inline, the class using it must inherit from GenericAdminModelAdmin.

Specifying which fields are handled

In most cases django-genericadmin will correctly figure out which fields on your model are generic foreign keys and just do the right thing. If you want to specify the fields yourself (Control your own destiny and all that) you can use the generic_fk_fields attribute on the admin class. Note that you can specify the fields on each admin class for inline admins. So, for the above mentioned inline admin, you would do it like so:

class PagesInline(TabularInlineWithGeneric):
   	model = AReallyCoolPage
	generic_fk_fields = [{
        'ct_field': <field_name_for_contenttype_fk>,
        'fk_field': <field_name_for_object_id>,
    }]

If you want to use more then one field pair, you can just add more dicts to the list.

If you use the ct_field and ct_fk_field attributes django-genericadmin will always just ignore those fields and not even try to use them.

Blacklisting Content Types

Specific content types can be removed from the content type select list. Example:

class NavBarEntryAdmin(GenericAdminModelAdmin):
   	content_type_blacklist = ('auth/group', 'auth/user', )

Whitelisting Content Types

Specific content types that can be display from the content type select list. Example:

class NavBarEntryAdmin(GenericAdminModelAdmin):
   	content_type_whitelist = ('auth/message', )

Note that this only happens on the client; there is no enforcement of the blacklist at the model level.

Lookup parameters by Content Type

Supply extra lookup parameters per content type similar to how limit_choices_to works with raw id fields. Example:

class NavBarEntryAdmin(GenericAdminModelAdmin):
    content_type_lookups = {'app.model': {'field': 'value'}

True Polymorphic Relationships

django-genericadmin also provides a UI to easily manage a particularly useful model that, when used as an inline on another model, enables relations from any entry of any model to any other entry of any other model. And, because it has a generic relationship moving in both directions, it means it can be attached as an inline to any model without having to create unique, individual foreign keys for each model you want to use it on.

Here's an example of a polymorphic model:

from django.db import models
from django.contrib.contenttypes.models import ContentType
from django.contrib.contenttypes import generic
    
class RelatedContent(models.Model):
    """
    Relates any one entry to another entry irrespective of their individual models.
    """
    content_type = models.ForeignKey(ContentType)
    object_id = models.PositiveIntegerField()
    content_object = generic.GenericForeignKey('content_type', 'object_id')

    parent_content_type = models.ForeignKey(ContentType, related_name="parent_test_link")
    parent_object_id = models.PositiveIntegerField()
    parent_content_object = generic.GenericForeignKey('parent_content_type', 'parent_object_id')

    def __unicode__(self):
        return "%s: %s" % (self.content_type.name, self.content_object)

And here's how you'd set up your admin.py:

from whateverapp.models import RelatedContent
from genericadmin.admin import GenericAdminModelAdmin, GenericTabularInline
    
class RelatedContentInline(GenericTabularInline):
    model = RelatedContent
    ct_field = 'parent_content_type' # See below (1).
    ct_fk_field = 'parent_object_id' # See below (1).
        
class WhateverModelAdmin(GenericAdminModelAdmin): # Super important! See below (2).
    content_type_whitelist = ('app/model', 'app2/model2' ) # Add white/black lists on this class
    inlines = [RelatedContentInline,]

(1) By default ct_field and ct_fk_field will default to content_type and object_id respectively. ct_field and ct_fk_field are used to create the parent link from the inline to the model you are attaching it to (similar to how Django does this attachment using foreign keys with more conventional inlines). You could also leave this configuration out of your inline classes but, if you do that, I encourage you to change the model attributes from parent_content_type & parent_object_id to child_content_type & child_object_id. I say this because, when it comes time to make queries, you'll want to know which direction you're 'traversing' in.

(2) Make sure that whatever the admin classes are utilizing these inlines are subclasses of GenericAdminModelAdmin from django-genericadmin or else the handy-dandy javascript-utilizing interface won't work as intended.