django-frontend-forms 0.1.13

A Django helper app to add editing capabilities to the frontend using modal forms

1 django-frontend-forms

A Django helper app to add editing capabilities to the frontend using modal forms.

Bases on my previous research as documented here: Editing Django models in the front end

Contents

• 1 django-frontend-forms

  • 1.1 Demo site

  • 1.2 Installation

  • 1.3 How to use

    • 1.3.1 Dialog methods

    • 1.3.2 Dialog options

    • 1.3.3 Dialog notifications

  • 1.4 Opening a Dialog

  • 1.5 Open the Dialog and perform some actions after content has been loaded

  • 1.6 Handling form submission

  • 1.7 Giving a feedback after successful form submission

  • 1.8 A full, real example for a Django Form submission from a Dialog

  • 1.9 Editing a Django Model from a Dialog

  • 1.10 Default dialog layout

  • 1.11 Settings

  • 1.12 “bs4” flavor

  • 1.13 Utilities (module FrontendForms)

  • 1.14 Form rendering helpers

  • 1.15 Datepicker support

  • 1.16 jQuery MultiSelect support

  • 1.17 django-select2 support

• 2 History

  • 2.1 v0.1.13

  • 2.2 v0.1.12

  • 2.3 v0.1.11

  • 2.4 v0.1.10

  • 2.5 v0.1.9

  • 2.6 v0.1.8

  • 2.7 v0.1.7

  • 2.8 v0.1.6

  • 2.9 v0.1.5

  • 2.10 v0.1.4

  • 2.11 v0.1.3

  • 2.12 v0.1.2

  • 2.13 v0.1.1

  • 2.14 v0.1.0

  • 2.15 v0.0.14

  • 2.16 v0.0.13

  • 2.17 v0.0.12

  • 2.18 v0.0.11

  • 2.19 v0.0.10

  • 2.20 v0.0.9

  • 2.21 v0.0.8

  • 2.22 v0.0.7

  • 2.23 v0.0.6

  • 2.24 v0.0.5

  • 2.25 v0.0.4

  • 2.26 v0.0.3

  • 2.27 v0.0.2

  • 2.28 v0.0.1

1.1 Demo site

An accompaning Demo site provides:

• a detailed description of the techniques used under the hood

• a list of working code samples (source: https://github.com/morlandi/django-frontend-forms/tree/master/example/samples)

1.2 Installation

Install the package by running:

pip install django-frontend-forms

or:

pip install git+https://github.com/morlandi/django-frontend-forms

In your settings, add:

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    ...
    'frontend_forms',
]

In your base template, include the default styles, the javascript support, and optionally the sample HTML template:

<link rel='stylesheet' href="{% static 'frontend_forms/css/frontend_forms.css' %}">
<script src="{% static 'frontend_forms/js/frontend_forms.jsx' %}"></script>
{% include 'frontend_forms/dialogs.html' %}

OPTIONALLY, since the js code uses the class keyword, you might want to transpile frontend_forms.jsx for maximum compatibility, to support oldest browsers.

For example, using Babel and django-compress:

<script src="{% static 'frontend_forms/js/frontend_forms.jsx' %}" type="text/jsx"></script>

then, setup handling for “.jsx” files as follows:

COMPRESS_PRECOMPILERS = (
    ...
    ('text/jsx', 'cat {infile} | ./node_modules/babel-cli/bin/babel.js --presets babel-preset-es2015 > {outfile}'),
)

(you my want to disable it local debugging):

# Remove js transpiling for easier debugging
COMPRESS_PRECOMPILERS = (
    ...
    ('text/jsx', 'cat {infile} | ./node_modules/babel-cli/bin/babel.js > {outfile}'),
)

then:

npm install babel-cli
npm install babel-preset-es2015
npm install babel-preset-stage-2

1.3 How to use

Two actions are required:

1. provide an HTML template for the dialog layout

2. attach the template to a Dialog javascript object to control it’s behaviour

Since in most cases you will be primarily interested in customizing the modal content only, a default template is provided to render a generic dialog (file frontend_forms/templates/frontend_forms/dialogs.html).

1.3.1 Dialog methods

Method	Effects
constructor(options={})	See options list below
open(event=null, show=true)	Open the dialog the dialog body will be immediately loaded with static content provided by option “html” then the dialog is shown (unless the “show” parameter is false) finally, dynamic content will be loaded from remote address provided by option “url” (if supplied) if successfull, a ‘loaded.dialog’ event is fired; you can use it to perform any action required after loading
close()	Close (hide) the dialog
show()	Make the dialog visible

1.3.2 Dialog options

Option	Default value	Notes
dialog_selector	‘#dialog_generic’	The selector for HTML dialog template
open_event	null	Used to “remember” the event which triggered Dialog opening
html	‘’	Static content to display in dialog body
url	‘’	Optional url to retrieve dialog content via Ajax
width	null
min_width	null
max_width	null
height	null
min_height	null
max_height	null
button_save_label	‘Save’
button_save_initially_hidden	false	Will be shown after form rendering
button_close_label	‘Cancel’
title	‘’
footer_text	‘’
enable_trace	false	show notifications in debug console
callback	null	a callback to receive events
autofocus_first_visible_input	true

1.3.3 Dialog notifications

event_name	params
created	options
closed
initialized
shown
loading	url
loaded	url, data
loading_failed	jqXHR, textStatus, errorThrown
open
submitting	method, url, data
submitted	method, url, data

During it’s lifetime, the Dialog will notify all interesting events to the caller, provided he supplies a suitable callback in the contructor:

self.options.callback(event_name, dialog, params)

Example:

dialog1 = new Dialog({
    ...
    callback: function(event_name, dialog, params) {
        console.log('event_name: %o, dialog: %o, params: %o', event_name, dialog, params);
    }
});

Result:

event_name: "created", dialog: Dialog {options: {…}, element: …}, params: {options: {…}}
event_name: "initialized", dialog: Dialog {options: {…}, element: …}, params: {}
event_name: "open", dialog: Dialog {options: {…}, element: …}, params: {}
event_name: "shown", dialog: Dialog {options: {…}, element: …}, params: {}
event_name: "loading", dialog: Dialog {options: {…}, element: …}, params: {url: "/admin_ex/popup/"}
event_name: "loaded", dialog: Dialog {options: {…}, element: …}, params: {url: "/admin_ex/popup/"}
event_name: "submitting", dialog: Dialog {options: {…}, element: …}, params: {method: "post", url: "/admin_ex/popup/", data: "text=&number=aaa"}
event_name: "submitted", dialog: Dialog {options: {…}, element: …}, params: {method: "post", url: "/admin_ex/popup/", data: "text=111&number=111"}
event_name: "closed", dialog: Dialog {options: {…}, element: …}, params: {}

You can also trace all events in the console setting the boolean flag enable_trace.

1.4 Opening a Dialog

In the following example, we build a Dialog() object providing some custom options; then, we use it to open a modal dialog and load it from the specified url.

For demonstration purposes, we also subscribe the ‘created’ notification.

<script language="javascript">

    $(document).ready(function() {

        dialog1 = new Dialog({
            html: '<h1>Loading ...</h1>',
            url: '{% url 'frontend:j_object' %}',
            width: '400px',
            min_height: '200px',
            title: '<i class="fa fa-calculator"></i> Selezione Oggetto',
            footer_text: 'testing dialog ...',
            enable_trace: true,
            callback: function(event_name, dialog, params) {
                switch (event_name) {
                    case "created":
                        console.log('Dialog created: dialog=%o, params=%o', dialog, params);
                        break;
                }
            }
        });

    });

</script>


<a href="#" class="btn btn-primary pull-right" onclick="dialog1.open(event); return false;">
    <i class="fa fa-plus-circle"></i>
    Test Popup
</a>

1.5 Open the Dialog and perform some actions after content has been loaded

In the following example:

• we subscribe the ‘loaded’ event

• we call open() with show=false, so the Dialog will remain hidden during loading

• after loading is completed, our handle is called

• in this handle, we show the dialog and hide it after a 3 seconds timeout

Sample usage in a template:

<script language="javascript">
    $(document).ready(function() {

        dialog2 = new Dialog({
            url: "{% url 'frontend:j_object' %}",
            width: '400px',
            min_height: '200px',
            enable_trace: true,
            callback: dialog2_callback
        });

    });

    function dialog2_callback(event_name, dialog, params) {
        switch (event_name) {
            case "loaded":
                dialog.show();
                setTimeout(function() {
                    dialog.close();
                }, 3000);
                break;
        }
    }
</script>


<a href="#" onclick="dialog2.open(event, show=false); return false;">
    <i class="fa fa-plus-circle"></i>
    Test Popup (2)
</a> /

1.6 Handling form submission

When a form submission is involved, the modal life cycle has to be modified as follows:

• First and foremost, we need to prevent the form from performing its default submit.

  If not, after submission we’ll be redirected to the form action, outside the context of the dialog.

  We’ll do this binding to the form’s submit event, where we’ll serialize the form’s content and sent it to the view for validation via an Ajax call.

• Then, upon a successufull response from the server, we’ll need to further investigate the HTML received:

  • if it contains any field error, the form did not validate successfully, so we update the modal body with the new form and its errors

  • otherwise, user interaction is completed, and we can finally close the modal

django-frontend-forms, upon detecting a form in the content downloaded from the server, already takes care of all these needs automatically, and keeps refreshing the modal after each submission until the form validation succeedes.

1.7 Giving a feedback after successful form submission

Sometimes, you might want to notify the user after successful form submission.

To obtain this, all you have to do, after the form has been validated and saved, is to return an HTML fragment with no forms in it; in this case:

• the popup will not close

• the “save” button will be hidden

thus giving to the user a chance to read your feedback.

def form_validation_with_feedback(request):

    assert request.is_ajax()

    if request.method == 'POST':
        form = MyForm(data=request.POST)
        if form.is_valid():
            form.save()
            return HttpResponse("<h1>Great !</h1> Your form has been validated")
    else:
        form = MyForm()

    return render(request, "my_form.html", {
        'form': form,
    })

1.8 A full, real example for a Django Form submission from a Dialog

We start by creating a view for form rendering and submission:

file ajax.py:

import time
from django.contrib.auth.decorators import login_required
from django.views.decorators.cache import never_cache
from django.core.exceptions import PermissionDenied
from django.http import HttpResponseRedirect


@login_required
@never_cache
def select_contract(request):

    # if settings.DEBUG:
    #     time.sleep(0.5);

    if not request.user.has_perm('backend.view_contract') or not request.is_ajax():
        raise PermissionDenied

    #template_name = 'frontend/dialogs/generic_form_inner_with_video.html'
    template_name = 'dashboard/dialogs/select_contract.html'

    object = None
    if request.method == 'POST':
        form = SelectContractForm(request=request, data=request.POST)
        if form.is_valid():
            object = form.save(request)
            if not request.is_ajax():
                # reload the page
                next = request.META['PATH_INFO']
                return HttpResponseRedirect(next)
            # if is_ajax(), we just return the validated form, so the modal will close
    else:
        form = SelectContractForm(request=request)

    return render(request, template_name, {
        'form': form,
        'object': object,  # unused, but armless
    })

and provide an endpoint to it for ajax call:

file urls.py

from django.urls import path
from . import ajax

app_name = 'dashboard'

urlpatterns = [
    ...
    path('j/select_contract/', ajax.select_contract, name='j_select_contract'),
    ...
]

The Form in this example does a few interesting things:

• includes some specific assets declaring an inner Media class

• receives the request upon construction

• uses it to provide specific initial values to the widgets

• provides some specific validations with clean()

• encapsulates in save() all actions required after successfull submission

file forms.py:

import json
import datetime
from django import forms
from selectable.forms import AutoCompleteWidget, AutoCompleteSelectWidget, AutoComboboxSelectWidget
from backend.models import Contract
from django.utils.safestring import mark_safe
from .lookups import ContractLookup


class SelectContractForm(forms.Form):

    contract = forms.CharField(
        label='Contract',
        widget=AutoComboboxSelectWidget(ContractLookup, limit=10),
        required=True,
        help_text=mark_safe(" "),
    )
    today = forms.BooleanField(label="Oggi", required=False)
    date = forms.DateField(widget=forms.DateInput(), label='', required=False)

    class Media:
        css = {
            'screen': ('dashboard/css/select_contract_form.css', )
        }
        js = ('dashboard/js/select_contract_form.js', )


    def __init__(self, request, *args, **kwargs):
        super().__init__(*args, **kwargs)
        self.fields['date'].widget = forms.DateInput(attrs={'class': 'datepicker'})
        assert request.user.is_authenticated and request.user.is_active
        self.fields['contract'].initial = request.user.contract_attivo
        self.fields['date'].initial = request.user.data_attiva
        self.fields['today'].initial = request.user.data_attiva is None

    def lookup_contract(self):
        try:
            contract = Contract.objects.get(
                id=self.cleaned_data['contract']
            )
        except Contract.DoesNotExist:
            contract = None
        return contract

    def clean(self):
        cleaned_data = self.cleaned_data
        if not cleaned_data['today'] and not cleaned_data['date']:
            raise forms.ValidationError({
                'date': 'Questo campo è obbligatorio'
            })
        return cleaned_data

    def save(self, request):
        user = request.user
        assert request.user.is_authenticated and request.user.is_active
        user.contract_attivo = self.lookup_contract()
        if self.cleaned_data['today']:
            user.data_attiva = None
        else:
            user.data_attiva = self.cleaned_data['date']
        user.save(update_fields=['contract_attivo', 'data_attiva', ])

The javascript and css assets are used for specific needs of this form:

function onChangeToday(event) {
    var controller = $('#id_today');
    var value = controller.is(":checked");
    $('#id_date').prop('disabled', value);
    $('.field-date .ui-datepicker-trigger').prop('disabled', value);
    if (value) {
        $('#id_date').datepicker('setDate', null);
    }
}

$(document).ready(function() {
    $('#id_today').on('change', onChangeToday);
    onChangeToday();
});

In the template, remember to include the Form’s assets:

{% load i18n frontend_forms_tags %}

{{ form.media.css }}

<div class="row">
    <div class="col-sm-12">
        <form action="{{ action }}" method="post" class="form {{form.form_class}}" novalidate autocomplete="off">
            {% csrf_token %}

            {% if form.errors or form.non_field_errors %}
                <p class="errornote">{% trans 'Please correct the error below.' %}</p>
            {% endif %}

            {% if form.non_field_errors %}
                <ul class="errorlist">
                    {% for error in form.non_field_errors %}
                        <li>{{ error }}</li>
                    {% endfor %}
                </ul>
            {% endif %}

            {% for hidden_field in form.hidden_fields %}
                {{ hidden_field }}
            {% endfor %}

            <fieldset>
                {% render_form_field form.contract %}
                <div>Data di riferimento:</div>
                <div class="data-selection-block">
                    {% render_form_field form.today %}
                    {% render_form_field form.date %}
                </div>
            </fieldset>

            <input type="hidden" name="object_id" value="{{ object.id|default:'' }}">
            <div class="form-submit-row">
                <input type="submit" value="Save" />
            </div>
        </form>
    </div>
</div>

{% if request.is_ajax %}
    {{ form.media.js }}
{% endif %}

And finally, the Dialog itself;

please note that we use the loaded event notification to rebind the widgets after form rendering.

{% block extrajs %}
<script language="javascript">
    $(document).ready(function() {

        dialog1 = new Dialog({
            dialog_selector: '#dialog_generic',
            html: '',
            url: "{% url 'dashboard:j_select_contract' %}",
            width: '80%',
            max_width: '400px',
            min_height: '200px',
            button_save_label: 'Salva',
            button_close_label: 'Annulla',
            title: '<i class="fa fa-file-o"></i> Selezione Contract',
            footer_text: '',
            enable_trace: true,
            callback: function(event_name, dialog, params) {
                switch (event_name) {
                    case "loaded":
                        bindSelectables();
                        dialog.element.find(".datepicker").datepicker({});
                        break;
                    case "submitted":
                        FrontendForms.reload_page(show_layer=true);
                        break;
                }
            }
        });

        $('.btn-cambia-contract').off().on('click', function(event) {
            event.preventDefault();
            dialog1.open();
        })

    });

</script>
{% endblock extrajs %}

1.9 Editing a Django Model from a Dialog

TODO: TO BE REFINED … AND VERIFIED ;)

First of all, we need a view for form rendering and submission.

For example:

@login_required
@never_cache
def edit_something(request, id_object=None):

    # if not request.user.has_perm('backend.view_something') or not request.is_ajax():
    #     raise PermissionDenied

    if id_object is not None:
        object = get_object_or_404(Something, id=id_object)
    else:
        object = None

    template_name = 'frontend_forms/generic_form_inner.html'

    if request.method == 'POST':

        form = SomethingForm(data=request.POST, instance=object)
        if form.is_valid():
            object = form.save(request)
            if not request.is_ajax():
                # reload the page
                next = request.META['PATH_INFO']
                return HttpResponseRedirect(next)
            # if is_ajax(), we just return the validated form, so the modal will close
    else:
        form = SomethingForm()

    return render(request, template_name, {
        'form': form,
        'object': object,  # unused, but armless
    })

where:

class SomethingForm(forms.ModelForm):

    class Meta:
        model = Someghing
        exclude = []

    ...

and an endpoint for Ajax call:

File “urls.py” …

path('j/edit_something/<int:id_object>/', ajax.edit_something, name='j_edit_something'),

We can finally use the form in a Dialog:

$(document).ready(function() {

    dialog1 = new Dialog({
        dialog_selector: '#dialog_generic',
        html: '<h1>Loading ...</h1>',
        url: '/j/edit_something/{{ object.id }}/',
        width: '400px',
        min_height: '200px',
        title: '<i class="fa fa-add"></i> Edit',
        footer_text: '',
        enable_trace: true,
        callback: function(event_name, dialog, params) {
            switch (event_name) {
                case "created":
                    console.log('Dialog created: dialog=%o, params=%o', dialog, params);
                    break;
                case "submitted":
                    FrontendForms.hide_mouse_cursor();
                    FrontendForms.reload_page(true);
                    break;
            }
        }
    });

});

1.10 Default dialog layout

When contructing a Dialog, you can use the dialog_selector option to select which HTML fragment of the page will be treated as the dialog to work with.

It is advisable to use an HTML structure similar to the default layout:

<div id="dialog_generic" class="dialog draggable">
    <div class="dialog-dialog">
        <div class="dialog-content">
            <div class="dialog-header">
                <span class="spinner">
                    <i class="fa fa-spinner fa-spin"></i>
                </span>
                <span class="close">&times;</span>
                <div class="title">Title</div>
            </div>
            <div class="dialog-body ui-front">

            </div>
            <div class="dialog-footer">
                <input type="submit" value="Close" class="btn btn-close" />
                <input type="submit" value="Save" class="btn btn-save" />
                <div class="text">footer</div>
            </div>
        </div>
    </div>
</div>

Notes:

• “.draggable” make the Dialog draggable

• adding “.ui-front” to the “.dialog-box” element helps improving the behaviour of the dialog on a mobile client

1.11 Settings

FRONTEND_FORMS_FORM_LAYOUT_FLAVOR

Default flavor for form rendering

• Default: “generic”

• Accepted values: “generic”, “bs4”

1.12 “bs4” flavor

Add the .compact-fields class to the form to modify the layout as in the right picture below:

1.13 Utilities (module FrontendForms)

• display_server_error(errorDetails)

• redirect(url, show_layer=false)

• gotourl(url, show_layer=false)

• reload_page(show_layer=false)

• overlay_show(element)

• overlay_hide(element)

• hide_mouse_cursor()

• logObject(element, obj)

• dumpObject(obj, max_depth, depth)

• isEmptyObject(obj)

• cloneObject(obj)

• lookup(array, prop, value)

• adjust_canvas_size(id)

• getCookie(name)

• confirmRemoteAction(url, options, afterDoneCallback, data=null)

• downloadFromAjaxPost(url, params, headers, callback)

• querystring_parse(qs, sep, eq, options)

• set_datepicker_defaults(language_code)

• apply_multiselect(elements)

1.14 Form rendering helpers

A render_form(form, flavor=None, layout=FORM_LAYOUT_DEFAULT) template tag is available for form rendering:

{% load frontend_forms_tags ... %}

<form method="post">
    {% csrf_token %}

    {% render_form form %}

    <div class="form-group form-submit-row">
        <button type="submit" class="btn btn-lg btn-primary btn-block">{% trans 'Submit' %}</button>
    </div>
</form>

For more a more advanced customization, you can use render_form_field(field, flavor=None, extra_attrs=’’, layout=FORM_LAYOUT_DEFAULT, index=0, addon=’’) instead:

{% load frontend_forms_tags ... %}

<form method="post">
    {% csrf_token %}

    {% if form.non_field_errors %}
        <ul class="errorlist">
            {% for error in form.non_field_errors %}
                <li>{{ error }}</li>
            {% endfor %}
        </ul>
    {% endif %}

    {% for hidden_field in form.hidden_fields %}
        {{ hidden_field }}
    {% endfor %}

    <fieldset>
        {% render_form_field form.username extra_attrs="autocomplete=^off,role=presentation,autocorrect=off,autocapitalize=none" %}
        {% render_form_field form.password extra_attrs="autocomplete=^off,role=presentation,autocorrect=off,autocapitalize=none" addon='<i class="fa fa-user"></i>' %}
    </fieldset>

    <div class="form-group form-submit-row">
        <button type="submit" class="btn btn-lg btn-primary btn-block">{% trans 'Submit' %}</button>
    </div>
</form>

In this second example, we supply extra_attrs attributes to each form field; these will be added to the attributes already derived from the Django Form field definitions.

The special prefix ^ will be removed from the attribute, and interpreted as “replace” instead of “append”.

A generic template is also available:

generic_form_inner.html:

{% load i18n frontend_forms_tags %}

<div class="row">
    <div class="col-sm-12">
        <form action="{{ action }}" method="post" class="form" novalidate autocomplete="off">
            {% csrf_token %}
            {% render_form form %}
            <input type="hidden" name="object_id" value="{{ object.id|default:'' }}">
            <div class="form-submit-row">
                <input type="submit" value="Save" />
            </div>
        </form>
    </div>
</div>

Please note that, as a convenience when editing a Django Model, we’ve added an hidden field object_id; in other occasions, this is useless (but also armless, as long as the form doesn’t contain a field called “object”).

1.15 Datepicker support

A basic support is provided for jquery-ui datepicker.

Follow these steps:

1. Initialize datepicker default by calling FrontendForms.set_datepicker_defaults(language_code) once:

<script language="javascript">
    $(document).ready(function() {
        moment.locale('it');

        FrontendForms.set_datepicker_defaults('{{LANGUAGE_CODE}}');    <-------------
        ...

2. In your form, make sure that the datepicker class is assigned to the input element; for example:

class MyForm(forms.Form):

    date = forms.DateField(widget=forms.DateInput())
    ...

    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
        super().__init__(*args, **kwargs)
        self.fields['date'].widget = forms.DateInput(attrs={'class': 'datepicker'})

3. If loading the form in a dialog, rebind as necessary:

dialog1 = new Dialog({
    ...
    callback: function(event_name, dialog, params) {
        switch (event_name) {
            case "loaded":
                bindSelectables();
                dialog.element.find(".datepicker").datepicker({});    <-------------
                break;
            ...
        }
    }
});

1.16 jQuery MultiSelect support

Requirements:

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="{% static 'multiselect/css/multi-select.css' %}" />

<script src="{% static 'multiselect/js/jquery.multi-select.js' %}"></script>
<script src="{% static 'jquery.quicksearch/dist/jquery.quicksearch.min.js' %}"></script>

Follow these steps:

1. In your form, add the multiselect class to the SelectMultiple() widget

class MyForm(forms.ModelForm):

    ...

    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
        super().__init__(*args, **kwargs)
        self.fields['operators'].widget.attrs = {'class': 'multiselect'}

2. Later on, bind the widget using apply_multiselect() helper:

dialog1 = new Dialog({
    ...
    callback: function(event_name, dialog, params) {
        switch (event_name) {
            case "loaded":
                FrontendForms.apply_multiselect(dialog.element.find('.multiselect'));
                break;
            ...
        }
    }
});

1.17 django-select2 support

Requirements (in file “base.html”):

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="{% static 'select2/dist/css/select2.min.css' %}" />

<script src="{% static 'select2/dist/js/select2.min.js' %}"></script>
<script src="{% static 'select2/dist/js/i18n/it.js' %}"></script>
<script language="javascript">
    $.fn.select2.defaults.set('language', 'it');
</script>
<script src="{% static 'django_select2/django_select2.js' %}"</script>

Follow these steps:

1. In your form, use one or more Select2Widget():

from django_select2.forms import HeavySelect2Widget

class MyForm(forms.ModelForm):

    ...

    class Meta:
        ...
        widgets = {
            'fieldname': HeavySelect2Widget(
                data_url='/url/to/json/response'
            )
        }

2. Later on, bind the widgets using djangoSelect2() helper:

dialog1 = new Dialog({
    ...
    callback: function(event_name, dialog, params) {
        switch (event_name) {
            case "loaded":
                dialog.element.find('.django-select2').djangoSelect2({

                    // "dropdownParent" is required for Bootstrap; see:
                    // https://select2.org/troubleshooting/common-problems#select2-does-not-function-properly-when-i-use-it-inside-a-bootst

                    dropdownParent: dialog.element
                });
                break;
            ...
        }
    }
});

I normally opt to include all required static files in “base.hmtml”, since I’m already including so much javascript stuff.

In this case, make sure django-select2 won’t istall them twice; for example:

class MySelect2Widget():
    """
    Avoid inclusion of select2 by django-select2 as a result of {{form.media}},
    since we're already including everything in base.html
    """
    def _get_media(self):
        return None
    media = property(_get_media)


class AlbumWidget(MySelect2Widget, ModelSelect2Widget):
    model = Album
    search_fields = [
        'name__istartswith',
    ]

2 History

2.1 v0.1.13

• Improved example project (Creating or updating a Django Model from the front-end)

• revised confirmRemoteAction() helper

2.2 v0.1.12

• Make sure invalid-tooltip is visible with BS4

2.3 v0.1.11

• Select2 support and examples

2.4 v0.1.10

• Small adjustments to default styles; “important” removed where possible

• Partial support for Bootstrap’s “input-group-addon”

• Example updated

2.5 v0.1.9

• Giving a feedback after successful form submission

2.6 v0.1.8

• Make sure Sweetalert2 pops up above modal dialog

2.7 v0.1.7

• render_form_field: show errors for radio groups

2.8 v0.1.6

• example django project added

2.9 v0.1.5

• autofocus_first_visible_input option added

2.10 v0.1.4

• generic Form submission from a Dialog example added to Readme

• fix horizontal forms for BS4

• add even/odd class to form groups

2.11 v0.1.3

• Display checkbox fields errors

• Adjust errors styles

2.12 v0.1.2

• Optionally provide the request to the Form constructor

• Add a class attribute ‘form-app_label-model_name’ to the rendered form

• django-select2 support

• jQuery MultiSelect support

2.13 v0.1.1

• ModalForms module renamed as FrontendForms

• optional parameter event added to open()

2.14 v0.1.0

• Module renamed from “django-modal-forms” to “django-frontend-forms”

2.15 v0.0.14

• Fixes for Django 3; support both int and uuid PKs

2.16 v0.0.13

• Configurable FRONTEND_FORMS_FORM_LAYOUT_DEFAULT

2.17 v0.0.12

• Support for model forms in a Dialog (undocumented)

2.18 v0.0.11

• Datepicker support

2.19 v0.0.10

• optional extra_attrs added to render_form_field template tag

2.20 v0.0.9

• fix confirmRemoteAction()

2.21 v0.0.8

• fix

2.22 v0.0.7

• add custom widget attrs when rendering a field with render_form_fields()

2.23 v0.0.6

• add “has-error” class when appropriate in render_form_field tag, to trigger errors in modal forms

2.24 v0.0.5

• “simpletable” fix

2.25 v0.0.4

• “simpletable” styles

2.26 v0.0.3

• downloadFromAjaxPost helper JS function added

• Display non_field_errors in BS4 form

• Prepend fields’ class with ‘field-’ prefix, as Django admin does

• Radio buttons and Checkboxs rendering for Bootstrap 4

• bs4 form rendering

• querystring_parse() utility added

• Add object_id hidden field to generic form

• .ui-front added to .dialog-body for bette behaviour on mobiles

• notify “loaded” event in _form_ajax_submit() when approriate

2.27 v0.0.2

• First working release

2.28 v0.0.1

• Project start