django-boosted

Lightweight helpers to extend Django’s admin with extra views, custom forms, and the matching UI affordances (object tools, permissions, standard responses).

Features

• @admin_boost_object_view decorator – fetches the target object, checks permissions, and builds the default context before rendering your template.
• AdminBoostMixin – registers the custom URLs, protects them with admin_site.admin_view, and injects extra object-tool buttons into the change form.
• AuditMixin – adds created_by, updated_by, created_at, updated_at with automatic user tracking via middleware.
• Additional templates – a change form template that renders the injected buttons plus a simple “Hello” view as a teaching aid.

Installation

pip install django-boosted

Quick start

# app/admin.py
from django.contrib import admin
from django_boosted.mixins import AdminBoostMixin
from django_boosted.decorators import admin_boost_object_view
from .models import Client


class ClientAdmin(AdminBoostMixin, admin.ModelAdmin):
    boost_views = ["hello_view"]
    change_form_template = "admin_boost/change_form.html"

    @admin_boost_object_view(label="Say hello", template_name="admin_boost/hello.html")
    def hello_view(self, request, obj):
        return {"message": f"Hello {obj}!"}


admin.site.register(Client, ClientAdmin)

Include the provided templates in your TEMPLATES["DIRS"] (or copy them to customize).

Using forms with ForeignKey widgets

The decorator can automatically apply admin widgets (ForeignKeyRawIdWidget or AutocompleteSelect) to your form fields, using the same logic as ModelAdmin.change_view():

# app/admin.py
from django import forms
from django.contrib import admin, messages
from django.shortcuts import redirect
from django_boosted.mixins import AdminBoostMixin
from django_boosted.decorators import admin_boost_object_view
from .models import Company

class SyncFullGroupForm(forms.Form):
    group = forms.ModelChoiceField(queryset=Company.objects.all())
    option = forms.ChoiceField(
        label="sync method",
        choices=[("method1", "Method 1"), ("method2", "Method 2")],
    )

class CompanyAdmin(AdminBoostMixin, admin.ModelAdmin):
    boost_views = ["sync_full_group_view"]
    change_form_template = "admin_boost/change_form.html"

    @admin_boost_object_view(
        label="Sync Full Group",
        template_name="admin/sync_full_group.html",
        form=SyncFullGroupForm,
        raw_id_fields=["group"],  # Automatically applies ForeignKeyRawIdWidget
    )
    def sync_full_group_view(self, request, obj, form):
        if request.method == "POST" and form.is_valid():
            # Process form...
            group = form.cleaned_data["group"]
            option = form.cleaned_data["option"]
            # ... your logic ...
            self.message_user(request, "Sync completed", messages.SUCCESS)
            return redirect(obj.admin_change_url)
        return {}  # Return additional context if needed

The decorator handles:

• Widget application (respects raw_id_fields and autocomplete_fields)
• Form validation on POST
• Adding the form to the template context
• Backward compatibility (if your view doesn't accept a form parameter, it won't be passed)

Global admin views & index panel

Register object-less admin views that reuse the existing view generators (adminform, form, confirm, message, list, json, redirect) — you only write the useful code that returns a form or a context dict, no template needed. Registered views are listed in a "Boosted" box on the admin index page, right before "Recent actions".

# app/boosted_views.py  (or app/admin.py)
from django import forms
from django.contrib import messages
from django.urls import reverse
from django_boosted import admin_boost_global_view


class ResyncForm(forms.Form):
    mode = forms.ChoiceField(choices=[("fast", "Fast"), ("full", "Full")])


@admin_boost_global_view("adminform", "Resync all")
def resync_all(request, form=None):
    if form is not None:  # valid POST
        # ... global logic ...
        messages.success(request, "Resync started")
        return {"redirect_url": reverse("admin:index")}
    return {"form": ResyncForm()}

Discovery — the decorator runs only if its module is imported. django-boosted imports, at startup:

• a conventional boosted_views.py module in each installed app (auto), and
• every module listed in DJANGO_BOOSTED_VIEW_MODULES (for files outside an app).

# settings.py
DJANGO_BOOSTED_VIEW_MODULES = ["myproject.ops.boosted_views"]

Views defined in an app's admin.py also work, since Django already imports it.

Options: path_fragment, template_name, permission (a permission codename, a callable(request) -> bool, or None for any staff user), order, show_in_index. Use register_index_view(label, url, ...) to add a plain link (e.g. reverse_lazy(...) to an existing admin view).

adminform views render the standard admin change-form "Save" button. To rename it, return save_label in the context dict:

@admin_boost_global_view("adminform", "Resync all")
def resync_all(request, form=None):
    if form is not None:
        return {"redirect_url": reverse("admin:index")}
    return {"form": ResyncForm(), "save_label": "Run resync"}

To render fields as Django admin readonly (plain text, not an input), return readonly_fields. Works with a regular Form or a ModelForm. Include the key on every return that still shows the form:

@admin_boost_global_view("adminform", "Generate token")
def generate_token(request, form=None):
    if form is not None:
        return {
            "form": ResultForm(initial={"token": token, "url": url}),
            "readonly_fields": ["token", "url"],
        }
    return {"form": GenerateForm(), "readonly_fields": ["token", "url"]}

For several buttons (with a color class each), return save_buttons; inspect request.POST to know which one was pressed. Available classes: default, success, info, warning, danger, primary, secondary.

@admin_boost_global_view("adminform", "Resync all")
def resync_all(request, form=None):
    if form is not None:
        if "_full" in request.POST:
            ...  # full resync
        return {"redirect_url": reverse("admin:index")}
    return {
        "form": ResyncForm(),
        "save_buttons": [
            {"name": "_fast", "label": "Fast", "class": "success"},
            {"name": "_full", "label": "Full", "class": "danger"},
        ],
    }

The box is wired via admin.site.index_template. If you use a custom AdminSite, set index_template = "admin_boost/index.html" on it.

Audit (created_by / updated_by)

1. Add CurrentUserMiddleware to MIDDLEWARE (after AuthenticationMiddleware):

MIDDLEWARE = [
    ...
    "django.contrib.auth.middleware.AuthenticationMiddleware",
    ...
    "django_boosted.middleware.CurrentUserMiddleware",
]

2. Use AuditMixin on your models:

from django.db import models
from django_boosted import AuditMixin

class Article(AuditMixin, models.Model):
    title = models.CharField(max_length=200)

The mixin automatically sets created_by on first save and updated_by on each save when a user is authenticated.

created_by and updated_by use AuditUserField: auto-filled with configurable concatenation. Default: ('pk', 'username') joined with _. Override audit_user_format and audit_user_separator on the model, or use the field directly:

# Via mixin
class Article(AuditMixin, models.Model):
    audit_user_format = ("pk", "email")
    audit_user_separator = "-"

# Or use AuditUserField standalone
from django_boosted import AuditUserField

class Log(models.Model):
    editor = AuditUserField(format_fields=("pk", "username"), mode="updated")

Settings:

• DJANGO_BOOSTED_AUDIT_USER_FALLBACK — default value when no request user (migrations, commands, scripts). Example: "robot_octolo". If not set, default is None.
• DJANGO_BOOSTED_AUDIT_USER_FORMAT_FIELDS — tuple of user attributes for the stored value. Default: ("pk", "username").
• DJANGO_BOOSTED_AUDIT_USER_SEPARATOR — separator between format fields. Default: "_".

In templates or Python, created_by and updated_by return AuditUserValue (str subclass) with admin_url:

obj.created_by  # "42-johndoe"
obj.created_by.admin_url  # "/admin/auth/user/42/change/"

Development commands

Run everything via ./service.py dev <command> or python dev.py <command>:

License

MIT — see the LICENSE file. Contributions welcome!