How to override and extend basic Django admin templates?

Question

How do I override an admin template (e.g. admin/index.html) while at the same time extending it (see https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/ref/contrib/admin/#overriding-vs-r

Answer 1

This site had a simple solution that worked with my Django 1.7 configuration.

FIRST: Make a symlink named admin_src in your project's template/ directory to your installed Django templates. For me on Dreamhost using a virtualenv, my "source" Django admin templates were in:

~/virtualenvs/mydomain/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/contrib/admin/templates/admin

SECOND: Create an admin directory in templates/

So my project's template/ directory now looked like this:

/templates/
   admin
   admin_src -> [to django source]
   base.html
   index.html
   sitemap.xml
   etc...

THIRD: In your new template/admin/ directory create a base.html file with this content:

{% extends "admin_src/base.html" %}

{% block extrahead %}

{% endblock %}

FOURTH: Add your admin favicon-admin.ico into your static root img folder.

Done. Easy.