dalf 0.7.2

Dead simple autocompletion for Django admin list_filter with goodies.

Django Admin List Filter

Dead simple autocompletion for Django admin list_filter. This was made using the libraries shipped with Django (select2, jquery), Django’s built-in list filters and Django’s built-in AutocompleteJsonView.

This package is an improved version of the previously created django-admin-autocomplete-list-filter package. It supports Django version 5 and above. Please note that the django-admin-autocomplete-list-filter package is now deprecated. Since I am no longer part of the organization where it was initially developed, I cannot archive it.

No extra package or install required!

Before Django Admin List Filter

After Django Admin List Filter

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Installation

pip install dalf

Add dalf to your INSTALLED_APPS in your settings.py:

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    "django.contrib.admin",
    "django.contrib.auth",
    "django.contrib.contenttypes",
    "django.contrib.sessions",
    "django.contrib.messages",
    "django.contrib.staticfiles",
    "dalf", # <- add
]

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Usage

Use DALFModelAdmin, inherited from admin.ModelAdmin to inject media urls only. You have some filters;

• DALFRelatedField: inherited from admin.RelatedFieldListFilter.
• DALFRelatedFieldAjax: inherited from admin.RelatedFieldListFilter
• DALFRelatedFieldAjaxMulti: inherited from admin.FieldListFilter - multi-select with AJAX
• DALFRelatedOnlyField: inherited from admin.RelatedOnlyFieldListFilter.
• DALFChoicesField: inherited from admin.ChoicesFieldListFilter.

Example models.py

# models.py
import uuid

from django.conf import settings
from django.db import models


class Category(models.Model):
    id = models.UUIDField(primary_key=True, default=uuid.uuid4, editable=False)
    title = models.CharField(max_length=255)

    def __str__(self):
        return self.title


class Tag(models.Model):
    id = models.UUIDField(primary_key=True, default=uuid.uuid4, editable=False)
    name = models.CharField(max_length=255)

    def __str__(self):
        return self.name


class Post(models.Model):
    id = models.UUIDField(primary_key=True, default=uuid.uuid4, editable=False)
    category = models.ForeignKey(to='Category', on_delete=models.CASCADE, related_name='posts')
    author = models.ForeignKey(to=settings.AUTH_USER_MODEL, on_delete=models.CASCADE, related_name='posts')
    title = models.CharField(max_length=255)
    body = models.TextField()
    tags = models.ManyToManyField(to='Tag', blank=True)

    def __str__(self):
        return self.title

Example admin.py:

# admin.py
from dalf.admin import DALFModelAdmin, DALFRelatedOnlyField, DALFRelatedFieldAjax, DALFRelatedFieldAjaxMulti
from django.contrib import admin
from YOURAPP.models import Post

@admin.register(Post)
class PostAdmin(DALFModelAdmin):
    list_filter = (
        ('author', DALFRelatedOnlyField),       # if author has a post!
        ('category', DALFRelatedFieldAjax),     # enable ajax completion for category field (FK)
        ('tags', DALFRelatedFieldAjax),         # enable ajax completion for tags field (M2M) - single select
        ('tags', DALFRelatedFieldAjaxMulti),    # enable ajax completion for tags field (M2M) - multi select
    )

Multi-select filter in action:

That's all... There is also DALFChoicesField, you can test it out:

# admin.py
from django.contrib import admin
from django.contrib.auth.admin import UserAdmin as BaseUserAdmin
from django.contrib.auth.models import User

from dalf.admin import (
    DALFModelAdmin,
    DALFChoicesField,
    DALFRelatedOnlyField,
    DALFRelatedFieldAjax,
)

from YOURAPP.models import Post, Category, Tag

# must be registered, must have search_fields, required for `author` field demo.
# this is demo purpose only, you can register/import your own/custom User model
class UserAdmin(BaseUserAdmin):
    search_fields = ['username']
    ordering = ['username']

admin.site.unregister(User)
admin.site.register(User, UserAdmin)

@admin.register(Post)
class PostAdmin(DALFModelAdmin):
    list_filter = (
        ('author', DALFChoicesField),        # enable autocomplete w/o ajax (FK)
        ('category', DALFRelatedFieldAjax),  # enable ajax completion for category field (FK)
        ('tags', DALFRelatedOnlyField),      # enable ajax completion for tags field (M2M) if posts has any tag!
    )

# must be registered, must have search_fields
@admin.register(Category)
class CategoryAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    search_fields = ['title',]
    ordering = ['title']


# must be registered, must have search_fields
@admin.register(Tag)
class TagAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    search_fields = ['name',]
    ordering = ['name']

Extras

I mostly use django-timezone-field, here is an illustration of timezone completion w/o ajax:

pip install django-timezone-field

Now add timezone field to Post model:

# modify models.py, add new ones
# ...

from timezone_field import TimeZoneField                 # <- add this line

class Post(models.Model):
    # all the other fiels
    timezone = TimeZoneField(default=settings.TIME_ZONE) # <- add this line
    
    # rest of the code

Now, just add timezone as regular list_filter:

# modify admin.py, add new ones

@admin.register(Post)
class PostAdmin(DALFModelAdmin):
    # previous codes
    list_filter = (
        # previous filters
        ('timezone', DALFChoicesField), # <- add this line
    )

That’s it!

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Contributor(s)

• Uğur Özyılmazel - Creator, maintainer
• Ehco - Contributor
• Bahattin Çiniç - Contributor
• Nguyễn Hồng Quân - Contributor
• Stanislav Terliakov - Contributor

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Contribute

All PR’s are welcome!

1. fork (https://github.com/vigo/django-admin-list-filter/fork)
2. Create your branch (git checkout -b my-feature)
3. commit yours (git commit -am 'add some functionality')
4. push your branch (git push origin my-feature)
5. Than create a new Pull Request!

I am not very proficient in JavaScript. Therefore, any support, suggestions, and feedback are welcome to help improve the project. Feel free to open pull requests!

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Development

Clone the repo somewhere, and install with:

pip install -r requirements-dev.txt
pip install -e /path/to/dalf
pre-commit install

And play with the filters :)

Publish

Note to my self:

pip install build twine
rake -T

rake build           # Build package
rake bump[revision]  # Bump version: major,minor,patch
rake clean           # Remove/Delete build..
rake test            # Run tests
rake upload:main     # Upload package to main distro (release)
rake upload:test     # Upload package to test distro

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Change Log

2026-01-25

• Add DALFRelatedFieldAjaxMulti - multi-select filter with AJAX support for selecting multiple values
• Fix clear button
• Fix max-width (now all filters are same width)
• Fix facet counts

2026-01-24

• Fix DALFRelatedFieldAjax filter repopulation bug - selected values beyond pagination limit now display correctly on page reload

2025-10-06

• Fix nested FK problem, thanks to penenkel

2025-03-14

• Fix ForeignKey relation to __id issue. Stanislav Terliakov

2024-11-07

• Fix dark-mode ajax autocompletion colors - Nguyễn Hồng Quân

2024-09-06

• Fix dark-mode text color.

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2024-08-25

• Fix extend media in DALFModelAdmin without overriding default assets - Bahattin

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2024-08-16

• Add gettextSafe function to handle missing gettext in Django - Bahattin

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2024-07-14

• Fix choice.display last element issue

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2024-07-03

Now package is working fine :) Thanks to Bahattin! Thanks to my dear friend Bahattin Çiniç’s warning, He realized that the necessary HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files were missing from the published package! I quickly fixed this and published a new version. The 0.1.0 version is a faulty version. I apologize to the users for this confusion.

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You can read the whole story here.

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License

This project is licensed under MIT

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This project is intended to be a safe, welcoming space for collaboration, and contributors are expected to adhere to the code of conduct.