django-subadmin 1.9.1

A special kind of ModelAdmin that allows it to be nested within another ModelAdmin

django-subadmin
===============

``django-subadmin`` provides a special kind of ``ModelAdmin``, called
``SubAdmin``, that allows it to be nested within another ``ModelAdmin``
instance. Similar to django’s built-in ``InlineModelAdmin``, it allows
editing of related objects, but instead of doing it inline, it gives you
a full ``ModelAdmin`` as sub-admin of parent ``ModelAdmin``. Like
``InlineModelAdmin`` it works on models related by ``ForeignKey``.
Multiple ``SubAdmin`` instances can be nested within a single
``ModelAdmin`` or ``SubAdmin`` allowing for multi-level nesting.

Installation
------------

The easiest and recommended way to install ``django-subadmin`` is from
`PyPI <https://pypi.python.org/pypi/django-subadmin>`__

::

pip install django-subadmin

You need to add ``subadmin`` to ``INSTALLED_APPS`` in your projects
``settings.py``, otherwise ``django`` will not be able to find the
necessary templates and template tags.

::

# settings.py

INSTALLED_APPS = (
...
'subadmin',
...
)

Example Usage
-------------

Sometimes things are best explained by an example. Let’s say you have
two related models.

.. code:: python

# models.py

class MailingList(models.Model):
name = models.CharField(max_length=100)


class Subscriber(models.Model):
mailing_list = models.ForeignKey(MailingList)
username = models.CharField(max_length=100)

If you wish to display only subscribers belonging to a particular
mailing list in django admin, your only options is to use
``InlineModelAdmin``, which is not very practical when dealing with
large number of related objects, plus, you loose all the cool
functionality of ``ModelAdmin`` like searching, filtering, pagination,
etc …

This is where ``SubAdmin`` comes in.

.. code:: python

# admin.py

from subadmin import SubAdmin, RootSubAdmin
from .models import MailingList, Subscriber

# Instead of admin.ModelAdmin we subclass SubAdmin,
# we also set model attribute

class SubscriberSubAdmin(SubAdmin):
model = Subscriber
list_display = ('username',)


# Since this is the top level model admin, which will be registred with admin.site,
# we subclass RootSubAdmin and set subadmins attribute

class MailingListAdmin(RootSubAdmin):
list_display = ('name',)

subadmins = [SubscriberSubAdmin]


admin.site.register(MailingList, MailingListAdmin)

With just a few lines of code you get a fully functional ``ModelAdmin``,
that will automatically pull in just the relevant related objects, based
on ``ForeignKey`` relation between the two models, it will also auto set
``ForeignKey`` fields for nested relations and exclude them from change
form when adding and editing objects on subadmin.

Screenshots
~~~~~~~~~~~

.. figure:: https://github.com/inueni/django-subadmin-example/raw/master/screenshots/subadmin_screenshot_1.png?raw=true
:alt: alt text

alt text

``SubAdmin`` instances are accesible from edit view of the
``ModelAdmin`` instance they are nested in. In the screenshot above you
can see links to *Subscribers* and *Messages* subadmins (marked with red
rectangle) for ``MailingList`` instance *Mailing list 5*.

--------------

.. figure:: https://github.com/inueni/django-subadmin-example/raw/master/screenshots/subadmin_screenshot_2.png?raw=true
:alt: alt text

alt text

``SubAdmin`` looks and behaves just like a regular ``ModelAdmin``, but
looking at breadcrumbs (marked with red rectangle), you can see it is
nested within another ``ModelAdmin``. Displayed ``Subscribers`` are
limited to those related to ``MailingList`` instance *Mailing list 5*.

--------------

.. figure:: https://github.com/inueni/django-subadmin-example/raw/master/screenshots/subadmin_screenshot_3.png?raw=true
:alt: alt text

alt text

When adding or editing objects with ``SubAdmin``, ``ForeignKey`` fields
to parent instances are removed from the form and automatically set when
saving. In this example ``mailing_list`` field is removed and value is
set to parent ``MailingList`` instance *Mailing list 5*.

If you want to see it in action, or get a more in-depth look at how
to set everything up, check out
https://github.com/inueni/django-subadmin-example.

Supported Django versions
-------------------------

Current release of ``django-subadmin`` is **1.9.1** and is compatible
with Django 1.9, 1.10 and 1.11.

Verison numbering
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

``django-subadmin`` version numbers are related to Django version
numbers. ``django-subadmin`` major and minor version numbers equal the
minimal compatible django release.

Stability
---------

``django-subadmin`` has evolved from code that has been running on
production servers since early 2014 without any issues. Still, the code
has been heavily refactored prior to public release, and while it is
unlikely to eat your data, consider it **BETA** software.