django-listview-search-admin-autocomplete 0.3.0

Django admin autocomplete with related field support

Django-search-admin-autocomplete

This is a fork of django-search-admin-autocomplete (archived). The original package is no longer maintained. This fork adds new features, modern Django support, and bug fixes.

Simple Django app that adds autocomplete search to the admin panel changelist view.

What’s New

• Related field search: Search across ForeignKey relations (e.g., client__name, category__title)

• Django 4+ / 5+ support: Fixed deprecated url() imports

• Modern build system: pyproject.toml with hatchling (no more setup.py)

• Python 3.8–3.13 support

• Comprehensive test suite (18 tests)

Requirements

• Python: 3.8+

• Django: 3.2+

Installation

pip install django-listview-search-admin-autocomplete

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    ...
    'search_admin_autocomplete',
    ...
]

Usage

Basic usage with direct fields:

from search_admin_autocomplete.admin import SearchAutoCompleteAdmin

class MyModelAdmin(SearchAutoCompleteAdmin):
    search_fields = ['name', 'description']

admin.site.register(MyModel, MyModelAdmin)

Related Field Support

Search across ForeignKey and related model fields using Django’s __ lookup syntax:

from search_admin_autocomplete.admin import SearchAutoCompleteAdmin

class OrderAdmin(SearchAutoCompleteAdmin):
    search_fields = [
        'order_number',
        'client__name',        # ForeignKey → Client.name
        'client__email',       # ForeignKey → Client.email
        'category__title',     # ForeignKey → Category.title
    ]

admin.site.register(Order, OrderAdmin)

The autocomplete will search and display values from both the model and its related models.

Configuration Options

class MyModelAdmin(SearchAutoCompleteAdmin):
    search_fields = ['name', 'client__name']
    search_prefix = '__icontains'  # Search operator (default: '__contains')
    max_results = 20               # Max autocomplete results (default: 10)

Customization

If you have a custom change_list.html:

admin.py

from search_admin_autocomplete.admin import SearchAutoCompleteAdmin

class MyModelAdmin(SearchAutoCompleteAdmin):
    change_list_template = 'admin/custom-list.html'
    search_fields = ['name', 'client__title']

admin.site.register(MyModel, MyModelAdmin)

admin/custom-list.html

{% extends 'search_admin_autocomplete/change_list.html' %}

{% block object-tools %}
Your custom html...
{{ block.super }}
{% endblock %}

Running Tests

cd example
python manage.py test search_admin_autocomplete

Changelog

0.3.0 (2026)

• Forked from archived django-search-admin-autocomplete

• Added support for related field lookups (e.g., client__name)

• Updated for Django 4+ and 5+ compatibility

• Modernized package configuration with pyproject.toml

• Added comprehensive test suite (18 tests)

0.2.1 and earlier

• Original release by linevich (see upstream repo)