django admin - add custom form fields that are not part of the model

Question

I have a model registered in the admin site. One of its fields is a long string expression. I\'d like to add custom form fields to the add/update page of this model in the a

Answer 1

It it possible to do in the admin, but there is not a very straightforward way to it. Also, I would like to advice to keep most business logic in your models, so you won't be dependent on the Django Admin.

Maybe it would be easier (and maybe even better) if you have the two seperate fields on your model. Then add a method on your model that combines them.

For example:

class MyModel(models.model):

    field1 = models.CharField(max_length=10)
    field2 = models.CharField(max_length=10)

    def combined_fields(self):
        return '{} {}'.format(self.field1, self.field2)

Then in the admin you can add the combined_fields() as a readonly field:

class MyModelAdmin(models.ModelAdmin):

    list_display = ('field1', 'field2', 'combined_fields')
    readonly_fields = ('combined_fields',)

    def combined_fields(self, obj):
        return obj.combined_fields()

If you want to store the combined_fields in the database you could also save it when you save the model:

def save(self, *args, **kwargs):
    self.field3 = self.combined_fields()
    super(MyModel, self).save(*args, **kwargs)