1. Django admin
Petter Arvidsson
Software architect at Fyndiq AB

2. What is the Django admin
application?
● It's a
● framework for rapidly developing administrative
backends
● well integrated part of Django
● It's not a
● lightweight DBMS
– Doesn't compare to e.g. phpMyAdmin
● CMS
– There exists applications that extends Django and admin
to be a CMS

3. Admin in relation to Django
Model Declarative Change list
Inferred
ModelAdmin
ModelForm Change/add view

4. Models
Model Change
list
● Everyone knows
Model
about Models, right?
Admin
Model Change
● Declarative definitions
Form /add
view of data bundles
● Provides validation
● Tip
● Model fields contains several options that are
directly linked to their behaviour in ModelForms
● Provides data
●
(and therefore indirectly in admin):
Blank, choices, editable, help_text, verbose_name
consistency

5. ModelForms
Model Change
● Fields are declared from the
list
Fields present in the Model
Model
Admin ● Provides validation
Model
Form
Change
/add
● Including user friendly error
view
messages
● Renders as HTML
● Tip ● Including error messages
● Forms keeps tracks of which fields that have
changed. A model form that is given an instance
will automatically populate the changed_data
● Easily customizable
property with any fields that were changed
● Can create or update a
bound model instance

6. Admin in relation to Django
Model Declarative Change list
Inferred
ModelAdmin
ModelForm Change/add view

7. ModelAdmin
Model Change
● Defines the change list and
list
the change/add view
Model
Admin ● Customizable
Model Change ● Change list
Form /add
view – Columns
– Sorting
– Search
● Tip – Filtering
● ModelAdmins can inherit in the same – …
way as Models can inherit. A powerful
pattern is to complement abstract
● Change/add view
models with ModelAdmin classes – Fields
– Inline
– Create your own ModelForm
– …

8. Admin actions
Model Change
● Bulk actions on steroids
list
● Filter, search, select and then
Model
Admin
execute
Model Change
● Define your own actions
Form /add
view ● Actions are methods on the
ModelAdmin
● Global actions (generic for all
● Tip models)
● Use admin actions to filter other ● Local actions (specialized for
admin views one model)
● E.g. select an author and
create an action to show all
books written by her/him

9. Result
Model Change
list
● Well defined, user
Model
friendly administrative
Admin
interfaces
Model Change
Form /add
view ● Extremely short
development times
● Tip
● The fact that Django is highly modular does not
by itself imply that it's a good idea to start only
using a limited amount of modules. E.g. if you
build your application only using Models it might
be really hard to add Forms and Admin later on

10. Where to go next?
● Django documentation
● James Bennet, Django in Depth at PyCon US
2012 (available from youtube.com)
● Django/contrib/admin/
● Join us?