django-dict-form 0.11.0

Is a lightweight extension for Django Forms that adds serialization

django-dict-form

Lightweight Django Forms extension. Adds as_dict() — serializes form definitions to Python dicts / JSON, making forms easier to integrate with REST APIs, SPA frontends (React/Vue), dynamic UI generators, and low-code systems.

Extends standard Django form rendering (as_p, as_table, as_ul) with machine-readable field metadata, validation rules, and widget configuration.

When is this convenient?

Write adapters to UI/UX components once — forms auto-generate on frontend. Backend edits propagate automatically. No manual frontend form duplication.

Features

• Serialize Django forms to Python dictionaries
• Useful for dynamic frontend rendering
• Simplifies API-driven form generation
• Lightweight and framework-friendly
• Compatible with standard Django Forms

Install

pip install django-dict-form

Quick Start

from django_dict_form.form import DictForm
from django import forms

class ContactForm(DictForm):
    name = forms.CharField(max_length=100)
    email = forms.EmailField()
    message = forms.CharField(widget=forms.Textarea)

form = ContactForm()
data = form.as_dict()

Output:

{
  "name": {
    "label": null,
    "required": true,
    "disabled": false,
    "help_text": "",
    "initial": null,
    "show_hidden_initial": false,
    "label_suffix": null,
    "widget": {
      "name": "TextInput",
      "type": "text",
      "is_hidden": false,
      "required": true,
      "choices": [],
      "attrs": {"maxlength": "100"}
    }
  }
}

Mixin Usage

Use RenderableDictFormMixin to add as_dict() to any existing form class:

from django_dict_form.form import RenderableDictFormMixin
from django import forms

class MyForm(forms.Form, RenderableDictFormMixin):
    field = forms.CharField()

as_dict() Output Schema

Each field produces:

Key	Type	Description
label	str | null	Field label
label_suffix	str | null	Label suffix
required	bool	Whether field is required
disabled	bool	Whether field is disabled
help_text	str	Help text
initial	any	Default value
show_hidden_initial	bool	Show hidden initial widget
widget	dict	Widget metadata (see below)

Widget dict:

Key	Type	Description
name	str	Widget class name (e.g. TextInput)
type	str | null	HTML input type (e.g. text, email, number)
is_hidden	bool	Whether widget is hidden
required	bool	Widget-level required
choices	list[{value, name}]	Options for select widgets
attrs	dict	HTML attributes (e.g. maxlength, min, max)

Supported Fields

Field	Widget	Notes
CharField	TextInput	maxlength, minlength in attrs
IntegerField	NumberInput	min, max in attrs
FloatField	NumberInput	step: any in attrs
EmailField	EmailInput	maxlength: 320 default
URLField	URLInput
BooleanField	CheckboxInput
ChoiceField	Select	choices serialized
DateField	DateInput
TimeField	TimeInput
DateTimeField	DateTimeInput
DurationField	TextInput
RegexField	TextInput
UUIDField	TextInput

Custom widgets supported — pass any widget instance, choices and attrs extracted automatically.

Requirements

• Python >= 3.11.15
• Django >= 3.2

License

MIT — Gleb Uvarov