I recently had to write a view that exported data to csv. The view had to be contained within the Django admin area, on a separate page from the rest of the apps and models. Here is the approach I took.
The Urls
There are 2 ways to add urls to the admin: the quick and easy way, or the not so quick and easy way. In this case, as I was only adding a single url, I went for the quick and easy way. The other way involves extending the get_urls() method of AdminSite, adding to the existing admin url pattern. I did this:
(r'^admin/mypage/$', 'myapp.views.my_admin_view'),
(r'^admin/', include(admin.site.urls)),
Make sure you add your page before the main admin include.
The View
When you write your view make sure you use the staff_member_required decorator.
from django.contrib.admin.views.decorators import staff_member_required
...
@staff_member_required
def my_admin_view(request):
# view code
When rendering your view, also make sure you pass RequestContext to the template:
return render_to_response('my_template.html',
context_instance=RequestContext(request))
The Template
So that your view looks like it belongs in the admin area, you need to extend the admin base site template:
{% extends 'admin/base_site.html' %}
You’ll also want to add in i18n support, and the admin media:
{% load i18n adminmedia %}
If you want to add in extra styles you can use {% block extrastyle %}, and you could put javascript in {% block extrahead %}.
Adding form date widgets
If you have a form on your page that includes date fields, you might want to have the nice django javascript form widgets. First you need to add the widgets to your form:
from django.contrib.admin import widgets
class AdminForm(forms.Form):
start_date = forms.DateField(label="Start date",
widget=widgets.AdminDateWidget())
Next you need to add in the following to your extrahead block (replace admin-media with whatever you’ve set your admin media url to):
<script type="text/javascript" src="/admin/jsi18n/"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="/admin-media/js/core.js"></script>
{{ form.media }}
You also need to add the admin forms css in the extrastyles block:
{{ block.super }}
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/admin-media/css/forms.css" />
Breadcrumbs
If you want to have the breadcrumb trail at the top of the page, you need to create your own breadcrumb:
{% block breadcrumbs %}<div class="breadcrumbs"><a href="/admin/">
{% trans "Home" %}</a> > My View</div>{% endblock %}
Adding a link to the admin index
When I add a link in, I like it to go in one of the right column boxes, so I usually create a new one and put it above the recent actions box. To do this, you need to override the admin index.html file.
Create a directory in your templates directory called admin. Then copy the index.html file from django/contrib/admin/templates to your new directory.
You’ll see a block called ’sidebar’. Under the ‘content-related’ div, place the following:
<div class="module">
<h2>Admin tools</h2>
<ul class="actionlist">
<li class="changelink">
<a href="/admin/mypage/">My View</a>
</li>
</ul>
</div>
Enjoy!
