Resize fields in Django Admin

Question

Django tends to fill up horizontal space when adding or editing entries on the admin, but, in some cases, is a real waste of space, when, i.e., editing a date field, 8 chara

Answer 1

Same answer as msdin but with TextInput instead of TextArea:

from django.forms import TextInput

class ShortTextField(models.TextField):
    def formfield(self, **kwargs):
         kwargs.update(
            {"widget": TextInput(attrs={'size': 10})}
         )
         return super(ShortTextField, self).formfield(**kwargs)

Answer 2

I had a similar problem with TextField. I'm using Django 1.0.2 and wanted to change the default value for 'rows' in the associated textarea. formfield_overrides doesn't exist in this version. Overriding formfield_for_dbfield worked but I had to do it for each of my ModelAdmin subclasses or it would result in a recursion error. Eventually, I found that adding the code below to models.py works:

from django.forms import Textarea

class MyTextField(models.TextField):
#A more reasonably sized textarea                                                                                                            
    def formfield(self, **kwargs):
         kwargs.update(
            {"widget": Textarea(attrs={'rows':2, 'cols':80})}
         )
         return super(MyTextField, self).formfield(**kwargs)

Then use MyTextField instead of TextField when defining your models. I adapted it from this answer to a similar question.

Answer 3

The best way I found is something like this:

class NotificationForm(forms.ModelForm):
    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs): 
        super(NotificationForm, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)
        self.fields['content'].widget.attrs['cols'] = 80
        self.fields['content'].widget.attrs['rows'] = 15
        self.fields['title'].widget.attrs['size'] = 50
    class Meta:
        model = Notification

Its much better for ModelForm than overriding fields with different widgets, as it preserves name and help_text attributes and also default values of model fields, so you don't have to copy them to your form.

Answer 4

To change the width for a specific field.

Made via ModelAdmin.get_form:

class YourModelAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    def get_form(self, request, obj=None, **kwargs):
        form = super(YourModelAdmin, self).get_form(request, obj, **kwargs)
        form.base_fields['myfield'].widget.attrs['style'] = 'width: 45em;'
        return form

Answer 5

If you are working with a ForeignKey field that involves choices/options/a dropdown menu, you can override formfield_for_foreignkey in the Admin instance:

class YourNewAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    ...

    def formfield_for_foreignkey(self, db_field, request, **kwargs):
        if db_field.name == 'your_fk_field':
            """ For your FK field of choice, override the dropdown style """
            kwargs["widget"] = django.forms.widgets.Select(attrs={
                'style': 'width: 250px;'
            })

        return super().formfield_for_foreignkey(db_field, request, **kwargs)

More information on this pattern here and here.

Answer 6

You can always set your fields sizes in a custom stylesheet and tell Django to use that for your ModelAdmin class:

class MyModelAdmin(ModelAdmin):
    class Media:
        css = {"all": ("my_stylesheet.css",)}