setting help_text for each choice in a RadioSelect

Question

I can set the help_text attribute on any form field, but is it possible to set help_text on the choices used for a RadioSelect()?

I\'d looking for a clean way to show so

Answer 1

Assuming you're using RadioSelect as a widget for forms.ChoiceField, you can do something like:

choices = (('1', 'First help_text here'),
           ('2', 'Second help_text here'),
           ('3', 'Third help_text here'),
          )

class MyForm(forms.Form):
    ...
    choice = forms.ChoiceField(widget = RadioSelect, choices = choices)

This isn't a strict use of help_text but it should get the job done in most cases.

Answer 2

@Rishabh is correct but I'll elaborate further as, at first glance, it doesn't appear to be the solution, although it is; or, at least, it can be kludged to get a useful effect without having to dive too deep into django forms.

The second element of the tuple is presented inside the "label" tag - so any 'inline elements' are permissible; for example:

The desired result

Or something like it

<ul>
  <li><label for="id_ticket_0">
      <input type="radio" id="id_ticket_0" value="PARTTIME" name="ticket"> 
      <em>Part Time</em> Valid on Friday Night and Saturday Only
  </label></li>
  <li><label for="id_ticket_1">
      <input type="radio" id="id_ticket_1" value="DAYTIME" name="ticket"> 
      <em>Casual</em> Valid on Saturday Only
  </label></li>
  <li><label for="id_ticket_2">
       <input type="radio" id="id_ticket_2" value="EARLYBIRD" name="ticket"> 
       <em>Early Bird</em> Valid on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. $15 discount for booking before 1am January 3rd, 2011
   </label></li>
</ul>

The simple example

The trick is to "mark_safe" the content of the description then stuff whatever you need into:

from django.utils.safestring import mark_safe
choices = (
  ('1', mark_safe(u'<em>One</em> | This is the first option. It is awesome')),
  ('2', mark_safe(u'<em>Two</em> | This is the second option. Good too.'))
)

The complex example

So in this example we:

1. assemble the choices into a list (any iterable structure will do)
2. pass the structure to the form's init to create our radio options on the fly
3. use a comprehension list to create an extended description for each radio option

The data structure: Tickets are my own classes and they have attributes:

• tickets.code - as in a ticket code
• label - a pithy short description
• help - a longer description

But more about that later. First lets create some instances:

from mymodule import ticket
# so lets create a few
fulltime = ticket('FULLTIME',160,'Full Time',
              "Valid Monday to Friday inclusive")
parttime = ticket('PARTTIME',110,'Full Time',
              "Valid outside of business hours only")
daytime  = ticket('DAYTIME',70,'Day Time',
              "Valid only on weekends and public holidays")

# and put them together in a list any way you like
available_tickets = [fulltime, parttime, daytime]

# now create the form
OrderForm(tickets=available_tickets)

That probably happened in your view code. Now to see what happens in the form

class OrderForm(ModelForm):

    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
        self.tickets = kwargs.pop('tickets')
        super(OrderForm, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)

        choices = [(t.code, mark_safe(u'<em>%s</em> %s' % (t.label, t.help)))
                for t in self.tickets]
        self.fields['ticket'] = forms.ChoiceField(
            choices = choices,
            widget  = forms.RadioSelect()
        )