Create custom buttons in admin change_form in Django

Question

I want to add custom buttons to the add/change form at the administration interface. By default, there are only three:

Save and add another
Save and continue editing
Save

I have created some custom methods in my forms.py file, and I want to create buttons to call these methods. I have used the snippet http://djangosnippets.org/snippets/1842/, but it's not exactly what I want. This one allows to create buttons and call methods from the admin.py file and not forms.py.

Is there a way to do that?

This is my admin.py code:

class CategoryAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    prepopulated_fields = { "alias": ("title",) }
    form = CategoryForm

admin.site.register(Category, CategoryAdmin)

And my forms.py code,

class CategoryForm(forms.ModelForm):
    """
    My attributes
    """
    def custom_method(self):
        print("Hello, World!")

How do I create a button that calls "custom_method()"?

score 37 · Answer 1 · edited Apr 15 '16 at 00:56

37

One simple way I found to add buttons is to add another row for the custom buttons. Create an admin directory in your template dir based on your needs. For example I usually add buttons for specific models in a custom template. Make a "templates/admin/app/model/" directory.

Then add a file change_form.html.

{% extends "admin/change_form.html" %}
{% load i18n %}

{% block submit_buttons_bottom %}
    <div class="submit-row">
       <input type="button" value="{% trans 'Another Button' %}" name="_anotherbutton" />
    </div>

    {{ block.super }}
{% endblock %}

The code before the {{ block.super }} is inspired by the submit_line.html template used by the template tag {% submit_row %}. I prefer this method because is straightforward but you must live with another row of buttons.

enter image description here

edited Apr 15 '16 at 00:56

vmonteco

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answered Jun 10 '15 at 12:09

Karim N Gorjux

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This is the best approach if you only want to alter the admin for one model (currently you can't override submit_line.html for this purpose). If you want the button to call a model method, you can override response_change in the model admin. – Rick Westera Sep 29 '15 at 22:32
Two non-trivial clarifications to make this work for me: (1) I needed to use `type="submit"` instead of `type="button"` in order for this do anything when clicked. (2) Using an example of this [change_form.html](https://github.com/CAVaccineInventory/vial/blob/8ae0065d244600303da241649008c81335574ba3/vaccinate/templates/admin/change_report.html#L23) this modification of [admin.py](https://github.com/CAVaccineInventory/vial/blob/de967bab804bf700dfb139ebcb9caeb9a5269211/vaccinate/core/admin.py#L1387-L1398) allows you to do something with the model when clicking the button. – craastad Nov 12 '21 at 00:50

score 19 · Accepted Answer · edited Aug 21 '11 at 18:18

19

You can override admin/change_form.html. Copy the version in contrib.admin.templates into your project. Mine is myproject/templates/admin/change_form.html, but you could use /myproject/myapp/templates/admin/change_form.html.

Next, edit the copy and change the two references to the existing template tag, {% submit_row %}, to point to your own template tag, {% my_template_tag %}.

Base your template tag on the contrib.admin's {% submit_row %}, but edit the HTML template to contain any extra buttons you want to display.

edited Aug 21 '11 at 18:18

Peter Mortensen

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answered Jun 07 '11 at 07:58

Andy Baker

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I would recommend against this method as you're duplicating a lot of code. It can be done in a much DRYer way. – Josh Sep 10 '13 at 00:18
Exactly right, if you need any custom context variables in your new templates. However, it looks like _soon_ we will only have to override `admin/submit_line.html`: https://code.djangoproject.com/ticket/13875 – frnhr Apr 10 '16 at 00:09

score 7 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 10 '13 at 00:17

The submit buttons in a change form are rendered by the submit_row template tag. This tag renders the template admin/submit_line.html. Since you want to add to the existing buttons, your best (and DRYest) approach is to override admin/submit_line.html.

For example, create a file my_project/templates/admin/submit_line.html with the following content:

{% load i18n admin_urls %}
<div class="submit-row">
{% if show_save %}<input type="submit" value="{% trans 'Save' %}" class="default" name="_save" {{ onclick_attrib }}/>{% endif %}
{% if show_delete_link %}<p class="deletelink-box"><a href="{% url opts|admin_urlname:'delete' original.pk|admin_urlquote %}" class="deletelink">{% trans "Delete" %}</a></p>{% endif %}
{% if show_save_as_new %}<input type="submit" value="{% trans 'Save as new' %}" name="_saveasnew" {{ onclick_attrib }}/>{%endif%}
{% if show_save_and_add_another %}<input type="submit" value="{% trans 'Save and add another' %}" name="_addanother" {{ onclick_attrib }}/>{% endif %}
{% if show_save_and_continue %}<input type="submit" value="{% trans 'Save and continue editing' %}" name="_continue" {{ onclick_attrib }}/>{% endif %}

<input type="submit" value="{% trans 'New button 1' %}" name="_button1" {{ onclick_attrib }}/>
<input type="submit" value="{% trans 'New button 2' %}" name="_button2" {{ onclick_attrib }}/>
</div>

Most of what's above was copied from django/contrib/admin/templates/submit_line.html. You can also add additional if statements in the template if you only want to show those additional buttons in certain cases.

I am trying to use this technique to have just a single custom button, but it appears my submit_line.html is not being used. Is there anything I have to do other then copy and modify that file? How can I debug why it's not getting picked up? I am using django 1.5 — Larry Martell, Apr 04 '15 at 20:15
I want this behaviour for just one app, so put the file in my_app/templates/admin/. It appears you cannot override this on a per app basis. It works if I put it in my_project/templates/admin but it's effecting every model in admin. Is there a way to test for what model it's being called for? — Larry Martell, Apr 04 '15 at 20:30
The only way I can think of is to somehow get the app name in the context while rendering the template. You'd need to override the template tag for that. — Josh, Apr 06 '15 at 15:27
I posted another questions about this and someone gave me a way to override submit_line.html for a single model (http://stackoverflow.com/questions/29452826/overriding-submit-line-html-for-a-single-model-or-app). That works, but I am still having an issue. My override has one button that invokes some custom code that does not add the row to the database. When my code is done, something runs that add the row. I don't want that to happen. — Larry Martell, Apr 06 '15 at 15:31

Create custom buttons in admin change_form in Django

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