Can you add parameters to Django custom admin actions?

Question

For example (not the case, but just to illustrate) if I wanted to add an action to set a specific field in the selected items to X. Is it possible to add an action to allow X to

Answer 1

It is possible with Django 1.5, though its a little hackish. I am not sure with what other older Django versions it's possible.

You write your own ModelAdmin subclass. ModelAdmin has an attribute called action_form which determines the form shown before Go button on changelist page. You can write your own form, and set it as action_form on your ModelAdmin subclass.

from django.contrib.admin.helpers import ActionForm
# ActionForm is the default form used by Django
# You can extend this class

class XForm(ActionForm):
    x_field = forms.CharField()


class YourModelAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    action_form = XForm

With these changes, you will have a CharField, where you can put value for X.

And use x_field in your action function.

def set_x_on_objects(modeladmin, request, queryset):
    for obj in queryset:
        obj.something = request.POST['x_field']
    # do whatever else you want

class YourModelAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    action_form = XForm
    actions = [set_x_on_objects]