How to pass request.user / user to message in Django - django

Question

So I want to let a user message another user. I want the 'sender' field automatically to be 'request.user' and the receiver field to be the user whom the sender clicked on through their profile page. How would I go about passing those into the form?
matches.html
<div class="container">
<p>Username: {{ profile }}</p>
<h5>Your Matches:</h5>
{% for item in match %}
<br>
<p>Username: <br>{{ item.username}}</p>
<img src="{{ item.photo.url }}" width="300">
<p>Bio: <br>{{ item.description }}</p>
<br>
{% endfor %}
</div>
forms.py/InstantMessageForm
class InstantMessageForm(forms.ModelForm):
class Meta:
model = InstantMessage
fields = ('receiver','sender','message')
def save(self, commit=True):
user = super(InstantMessageForm, self).save(commit=False)
user.receiver = cleaned_data['receiver']
user.sender = cleaned_data['sender']
user.message = cleaned_data['message']
if commit:
user.save()
return user
views.py/instant_message
def instant_message(request):
if request.method == 'POST':
form = InstantMessageForm(request.POST)
if form.is_valid():
form.save()
return redirect('dating_app:home')
else:
form = InstantMessageForm()
context = {'form':form}
return render(request, 'dating_app/instant_message_form.html',context)
models.py
class InstantMessage(models.Model):
receiver = models.ForeignKey(settings.AUTH_USER_MODEL, on_delete=models.CASCADE)
sender = models.ForeignKey(settings.AUTH_USER_MODEL, related_name= 'sender',on_delete=models.CASCADE )
message = models.TextField()
class InstantMessage(models.Model):
receiver = models.ForeignKey(settings.AUTH_USER_MODEL, on_delete=models.CASCADE)
sender = models.ForeignKey(settings.AUTH_USER_MODEL, related_name= 'sender',on_delete=models.CASCADE )
message = models.TextField()
instant_message_form.py
{% extends "dating_app/base.html" %}
{% load bootstrap4 %}
{% block content %}
<h1>Start chatting now!</h1>
<div class='container'>
<form method="post" action="{% url 'dating_app:instant_message' %}" >
{% csrf_token %}
{{ form.as_p }}
<button type="submit">Register</button>
</form>
</div>
{% endblock content %}

Answer 1

You can create a form without the sender field:
class InstantMessageForm(forms.ModelForm):
class Meta:
model = InstantMessage
fields = ('receiver', 'message')
Then in the view, you can inject the request.user as the .sender of .instance wrapped in the form:
from django.contrib.auth.decorators import login_required
#login_required
def instant_message(request):
if request.method == 'POST':
form = InstantMessageForm(request.POST)
if form.is_valid():
form.instance.sender = request.user
form.save()
return redirect('dating_app:home')
else:
form = InstantMessageForm()
context = {'form':form}
return render(request, 'dating_app/instant_message_form.html',context)
Note: You can limit views to a view to authenticated users with the
#login_required decorator [Django-doc].
In order to set the receiver, your url should for example contain the a primary key of the receiver. You can then remove the receiver from the form as well, and thus use:
from django.contrib.auth import get_user_model
from django.contrib.auth.decorators import login_required
from django.shortcuts import get_object_or_404
#login_required
def instant_message(request, receiver_id):
if request.method == 'POST':
form = InstantMessageForm(request.POST)
if form.is_valid():
form.instance.sender = request.user
form.instance.receiver = get_object_or_404(get_user_mode(), pk=receiver_id)
form.save()
return redirect('dating_app:home')
else:
form = InstantMessageForm()
context = {'form':form}
return render(request, 'dating_app/instant_message_form.html',context)
You of course need then to alter the urls.py accordingly and the action url, such that it includes the primary key of the receiver.