Admin Interface

Django's admin interface provides a web-based interface for managing your application's data.

Basic Admin Setup

Registering Models

# admin.py
from django.contrib import admin
from .models import Article, Category, Tag

# Simple registration
admin.site.register(Article)
admin.site.register(Category)

# Custom admin class
@admin.register(Tag)
class TagAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    list_display = ['name', 'created_at']
    search_fields = ['name']

Creating Superuser

python manage.py createsuperuser

Customizing Admin Classes

List Display and Filtering

@admin.register(Article)
class ArticleAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    list_display = ['title', 'author', 'status', 'created_at', 'is_published']
    list_filter = ['status', 'created_at', 'author']
    search_fields = ['title', 'content']
    date_hierarchy = 'created_at'
    ordering = ['-created_at']
    list_per_page = 25

    def is_published(self, obj):
        return obj.status == 'published'
    is_published.boolean = True
    is_published.short_description = 'Published?'

Form Customization

class ArticleAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    fields = ['title', 'slug', 'content', 'status']
    # or
    fieldsets = [
        ('Basic Information', {
            'fields': ['title', 'slug']
        }),
        ('Content', {
            'fields': ['content']
        }),
        ('Publishing', {
            'fields': ['status', 'featured'],
            'classes': ['collapse']
        })
    ]

    prepopulated_fields = {'slug': ('title',)}
    filter_horizontal = ['tags']
    raw_id_fields = ['author']

Inline Models

Tabular and Stacked Inlines

class BookInline(admin.TabularInline):
    model = Book
    extra = 1
    fields = ['title', 'isbn', 'publication_date']

class AuthorAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    inlines = [BookInline]
    list_display = ['name', 'book_count']

    def book_count(self, obj):
        return obj.book_set.count()
    book_count.short_description = 'Number of Books'

# Stacked inline for detailed forms
class ProfileInline(admin.StackedInline):
    model = Profile
    can_delete = False
    verbose_name_plural = 'Profile'

class UserAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    inlines = [ProfileInline]

Custom Actions

Bulk Actions

class ArticleAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    actions = ['make_published', 'make_draft']

    def make_published(self, request, queryset):
        updated = queryset.update(status='published')
        self.message_user(
            request,
            f'{updated} articles were successfully marked as published.'
        )
    make_published.short_description = 'Mark selected articles as published'

    def make_draft(self, request, queryset):
        updated = queryset.update(status='draft')
        self.message_user(
            request,
            f'{updated} articles were successfully marked as draft.'
        )
    make_draft.short_description = 'Mark selected articles as draft'

Admin Forms

Custom Forms

from django import forms
from django.contrib import admin
from .models import Article

class ArticleForm(forms.ModelForm):
    class Meta:
        model = Article
        fields = '__all__'
        widgets = {
            'content': forms.Textarea(attrs={'rows': 20, 'cols': 80}),
        }

    def clean_title(self):
        title = self.cleaned_data['title']
        if len(title) < 5:
            raise forms.ValidationError('Title must be at least 5 characters long')
        return title

class ArticleAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    form = ArticleForm

Overriding Admin Methods

class ArticleAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    def save_model(self, request, obj, form, change):
        if not change:  # Creating new object
            obj.author = request.user
        super().save_model(request, obj, form, change)

    def get_queryset(self, request):
        qs = super().get_queryset(request)
        if request.user.is_superuser:
            return qs
        return qs.filter(author=request.user)

    def has_change_permission(self, request, obj=None):
        if obj is None:
            return True
        return obj.author == request.user or request.user.is_superuser

Advanced Customization

Custom Admin Views

from django.urls import path
from django.shortcuts import render
from django.contrib.admin.views.decorators import staff_member_required

class ArticleAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    def get_urls(self):
        urls = super().get_urls()
        custom_urls = [
            path('statistics/', self.admin_site.admin_view(self.statistics_view), name='article_statistics'),
        ]
        return custom_urls + urls

    def statistics_view(self, request):
        context = {
            'title': 'Article Statistics',
            'total_articles': Article.objects.count(),
            'published_articles': Article.objects.filter(status='published').count(),
            'draft_articles': Article.objects.filter(status='draft').count(),
        }
        return render(request, 'admin/article_statistics.html', context)

Custom Admin Site

# admin.py
from django.contrib.admin import AdminSite
from django.urls import path

class MyAdminSite(AdminSite):
    site_header = 'My Administration'
    site_title = 'My Admin Portal'
    index_title = 'Welcome to My Administration Portal'

    def get_urls(self):
        urls = super().get_urls()
        custom_urls = [
            path('dashboard/', self.admin_view(self.dashboard_view), name='dashboard'),
        ]
        return custom_urls + urls

    def dashboard_view(self, request):
        context = {
            'title': 'Dashboard',
            'user_count': User.objects.count(),
            'article_count': Article.objects.count(),
        }
        return render(request, 'admin/dashboard.html', context)

my_admin_site = MyAdminSite(name='myadmin')
my_admin_site.register(Article, ArticleAdmin)

Admin Templates

Customizing Admin Templates

<!-- templates/admin/base_site.html -->
{% extends "admin/base.html" %} {% block title %}{{ title }} | My Site Admin{%
endblock %} {% block branding %}
<h1 id="site-name">
  <a href="{% url 'admin:index' %}">My Site Administration</a>
</h1>
{% endblock %} {% block nav-global %}{% endblock %}

<!-- templates/admin/article_statistics.html -->
{% extends "admin/base_site.html" %} {% load i18n admin_urls static admin_modify
%} {% block content %}
<div class="module">
  <h2>Article Statistics</h2>
  <table>
    <tr>
      <td>Total Articles:</td>
      <td>{{ total_articles }}</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Published Articles:</td>
      <td>{{ published_articles }}</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Draft Articles:</td>
      <td>{{ draft_articles }}</td>
    </tr>
  </table>
</div>
{% endblock %}

Permissions in Admin

Model Permissions

class ArticleAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    def has_add_permission(self, request):
        return request.user.has_perm('myapp.add_article')

    def has_change_permission(self, request, obj=None):
        if obj is None:
            return request.user.has_perm('myapp.change_article')
        return obj.author == request.user or request.user.is_superuser

    def has_delete_permission(self, request, obj=None):
        if obj is None:
            return request.user.has_perm('myapp.delete_article')
        return request.user.is_superuser

    def has_view_permission(self, request, obj=None):
        return request.user.has_perm('myapp.view_article')

Admin Groups

# Create admin groups with specific permissions
from django.contrib.auth.models import Group, Permission

# Create editor group
editors = Group.objects.create(name='Editors')

# Add specific permissions
permissions = Permission.objects.filter(
    content_type__app_label='myapp',
    codename__in=['add_article', 'change_article', 'view_article']
)
editors.permissions.set(permissions)

# Add users to group
user.groups.add(editors)

Admin Media and Assets

Adding Custom CSS/JS

class ArticleAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    class Media:
        css = {
            'all': ('admin/css/custom.css',)
        }
        js = ('admin/js/custom.js',)

/* static/admin/css/custom.css */
.field-content textarea {
  height: 400px;
}

.dashboard-stats {
  background: #f8f9fa;
  padding: 20px;
  border-radius: 5px;
}

Admin Security

Rate Limiting Admin

# settings.py
INSTALLED_APPS = [
    'django_ratelimit',
    # ... other apps
]

# Protect admin login
from django_ratelimit.decorators import ratelimit
from django.contrib.admin.views.decorators import staff_member_required

@ratelimit(key='ip', rate='5/m', method='POST')
def admin_login(request):
    return admin.site.login(request)

Admin Logging

# Log admin actions
import logging

logger = logging.getLogger('admin_actions')

class ArticleAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    def save_model(self, request, obj, form, change):
        if change:
            logger.info(f'User {request.user} updated article {obj.id}')
        else:
            logger.info(f'User {request.user} created article {obj.id}')
        super().save_model(request, obj, form, change)