Django Admin - Show form json input value as text insted string - django

Question

Considering I have a model like:
MyStore = (
id = 1,
name = 'Foobar',
information_as_json = {
'open_at': datetime.now(),
'close_at': datetime.now() + timedelta('+1 day'),
'workers' : {
'Person1' : 'Owner',
'Person2' : 'Boss',
'Person3' : 'Boss',
}
})
Inside Django admin forms, for every field is generated an input, but for the field "information_as_json", I don't want to show it as a string or as JSON. That is because the users who are accessing this store admin page, need to read the field 'information_as_json' easier since no one can edit these values because it is generated in another part of the application.
Is it possible to convert these values to a "div" or a plain text? The contents would be:
This store opens at: {information_as_json.open_at}
This store close at: {information_as_json.close_at}
And for the workers, iterate through keys and values:
for key, value in information_as_json.workers:
Worker {key} has the role: {value}
I'm a beginner at Django, so I'm struggling a little with this part.
Every help would be appreciated :D

Answer 1

I would suggest approaching the model a little differently. Rather than storing the opening and closing hours as JSON they can just be fields directly on the store model. The the workers can be a JSONfield [docs] containing name/role pairs. If you're using PostgreSQL for your database you could even use HStoreField [docs], which might be more appropriate.
Here's how I would write a similar model.
class Store(models.Model):
name = models.CharField(max_length=512, unique=True)
workers = models.JSONField(blank=True, default=dict, editable=False)
closing = models.TimeField(blank=True, null=True, editable=False)
opening = models.TimeField(blank=True, null=True, editable=False)
To display the details in the Django admin we just need to define a property which returns the correct string.
#mark_safe
def details(self):
roles = [
f'{x} has the role: {y}'
for x, y in self.workers.items()
]
return '<br>'.join([
f'This store opens at: {self.opening:%-H:%M}',
f'This store closes at: {self.closing:%-H:%M}',
] + roles)
This method can then be referenced in the ModelAdmin and used like a read-only field.
#admin.register(Store)
class StoreAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
list_display = ['name', 'opening', 'closing']
fields = ['name', 'details']
readonly_fields = ['details']