The newforms-admin branch

This branch aims to integrate Django's admin site with the ​newforms library. Along the way, we'll take the opportunity to add extra customization hooks to the admin site, in preparation for a complete admin-site refactoring in the future.

How to get the branch

svn co http://code.djangoproject.com/svn/django/branches/newforms-admin/

See our ​branch policy for full information on how to use a branch.

Goals

In no particular order, here are the goals of this branch. This list may expand as we get more ideas.

• Core goals
  • Change the admin site to use newforms instead of automatic manipulators.
  • Enable developers to declare custom widgets for particular fields in a model.
  • Enable developers to declare custom admin-only validation for a model (i.e., validation logic that is applied only in the admin site, nowhere else).
  • Give developers extra hooks into the admin-site functionality. (Yes, this is a broad goal. More examples are forthcoming.)
  • Integrate some ideas from #2248: Remove core=True, specify inline models in the model itself rather than in the related model, specify which fields should be displayed inline.

The ​django.contrib.formtools.preview.FormPreview application (not yet documented, but fully implemented) elegantly allows for fine-grained customization of the application by subclassing. A similar approach would be a great fit for the Django admin site: Write a class that subclasses a base class called ModelAdmin and specify whichever customizations you need to make -- from the current basic admin options such as list_display and search_fields to full-on Python hooks, such as defining arbitrary Python code to run before or after a model object is saved via the admin.

We should keep in mind this future goal as we implement the newforms-admin branch. Although we don't have to implement all of this hooks for the time being, we should ensure this branch's changes are future-compatible with these plans.

Roadmap

Change admin URLconf so that the five model-specific views (change_list, add_stage, history, delete_stage, change_stage) point to the class Admin in the appropriate model, rather than pointing at the django.contrib.admin view functions.	Done in [4315]
Create a class django.contrib.admin.options.ModelAdmin, which implements the admin hooks for a particular model.	Done in [4315]
Implement has_add_permission(), has_change_permission() and has_delete_permission() hooks on ModelAdmin, so people can implement specific permission logic (such as per-object permissions).	Done in [4324]
Change model infastructure/metaclass so that the inner class Admin automatically subclasses ModelAdmin. (This is a bit of black magic, but it's necessary for backwards compatibility. We may require an explicit subclass declaration in the future.)	Done in [4328]
Implement ModelAdmin.add_view as a method rather than the add_stage view function.	Done in [4323].
Implement ModelAdmin.change_view as a method rather than the change_stage view function.	Done in [4322].
Implement ModelAdmin.change_list_view.	Done in [4320]
Implement ModelAdmin.history_view.	Done in [4319]
Implement ModelAdmin.delete_view.	Done in [4321]
Change _meta.admin on a model to be a ModelAdmin class instead of a AdminOptions instance, and remove the AdminOptions class.	Done in [4343]
Clean up some of the admin: fold ChangeList methods/functionality into ModelAdmin.	Not done yet
Change ModelAdmin.add_view to use newforms.	Done
Change ModelAdmin.change_view to use newforms.	Done
Change raw_id_admin so that it's a class Admin option rather than being a database Field option.	Done in [4430]
Figure out a cleaner way of specifying admin options, now that class Admin is much more powerful. It doesn't feel like it should live in the model anymore.	Done; see ​discussion
Implement edit-inline functionality	Not done yet

Backwards-incompatible changes

This is a (currently incomplete) list of backwards-incompatible changes made in this branch.

Changed Admin.manager option to more flexible hook

As of [4342], the manager option to class Admin no longer exists. This option was undocumented, but we're mentioning the change here in case you used it. In favor of this option, class Admin may now define one of these methods:

• queryset()
• queryset_add()
• queryset_change()

These give you much more flexibility.

Note that this change was made to the NewformsAdminBranch. (We initially called the new method change_list_queryset, but this was changed in [4584] to be more flexible.) The change will not be made to trunk until that branch is merged to trunk.

Changed prepopulate_from to be defined in the Admin class, not database field classes

As of [4446], the prepopulate_from option to database fields no longer exists. It's been discontinued in favor of the new prepopulated_fields option on class Admin. The new prepopulated_fields option, if given, should be a dictionary mapping field names to lists/tuples of field names. Here's an example comparing old syntax and new syntax:

# OLD:
class MyModel(models.Model):
    first_name = models.CharField(maxlength=30)
    last_name = models.CharField(maxlength=30)
    slug = models.CharField(maxlength=60, prepopulate_from=('first_name', 'last_name'))

    class Admin:
        pass

# NEW:
class MyModel(models.Model):
    first_name = models.CharField(maxlength=30)
    last_name = models.CharField(maxlength=30)
    slug = models.CharField(maxlength=60)

    class Admin:
        prepopulated_fields = {'slug': ('first_name', 'last_name')}

Note that this change was made to the NewformsAdminBranch. The change will not be made to trunk until that branch is merged to trunk.

Moved admin doc views into django.contrib.admindocs

As of [4585], the documentation views for the Django admin site were moved into a new package, django.contrib.admindocs.

The admin docs, which aren't documented very well, were located at docs/ in the admin site. They're also linked-to by the "Documentation" link in the upper right of default admin templates.

Because we've moved the doc views, you now have to activate admin docs explicitly. Do this by adding the following line to your URLconf:

(r'^admin/doc/', include('django.contrib.admindocs.urls')),

Note that this change was made to the NewformsAdminBranch. The change will not be made to trunk until that branch is merged to trunk.