Django crispy forms always renders readonly - django

Question

I am using django-cripy-forms and I want to make a field be readonly or not, depending on other things that happen in my code. My current code for a form looks like:
from crispy_forms.helper import FormHelper
from crispy_forms.layout import Layout, Field, Submit
from django import forms
from .models import Contact
class ContactForm(forms.ModelForm):
class Meta:
model = Contact
exclude = ['author']
contact_email = forms.EmailField()
content = forms.CharField(widget=forms.Textarea(), required=True)
def __init__(self, email_readonly=False, *args, **kwargs):
super(ContactForm, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)
self.helper = FormHelper()
self.helper.form_id = 'contact-form'
self.helper.layout = Layout(
Field('contact_email', readonly=email_readonly),
Field('content'),
Submit('', 'Send')
)
But this always renders the contact email field as readonly.
In fact, I noticed that the only way that the field is not readonly is if the key readonly doesn't even appear in the Field constructor, i.e.
Field('contact_email', readonly=False),
has the exact same effect as
Field('contact_email', readonly=True),
while I would expect it to have the same effect as
Field('contact_email'),
Is this a bug or am I misusing the code?
Edit:
In my template, I have both the line
{% load crispy_forms_tags %}
and
{% crispy form %}
I am rendering the template with
render(request, 'main_site/contact.html', context={'form':ContactForm(email_readonly=False)})`
or
render(request, 'main_site/contact.html', context={'form':ContactForm(email_readonly=True)})`
with True and False being set somewhere else (I don't think that's relevant for the current question, as the current question only refers to the strange behaviour when email_readonly is set to False)

Answer 1

This is a known issue in Crispy Forms - see #326, and #257 which is the root of the issue.
The readonly attribute is a boolean attribute as opposed to a key-value attribute, i.e., you can use it like this:
<input name='foo' readonly>
The presence of the attribute means that the field is readonly.
Crispy forms does not handle such boolean attributes (with the exception of the required attribute which is has a special case for) and just renders them as it would any other attribute.
This is a problem because as far as your browser is concerned, readonly="true" and readonly="false" are the same thing. The mere presence of that attribute will cause the field to be read-only.
You could do something like this as a workaround:
self.helper.layout = Layout(
Field('contact_email', readonly=True) if email_readonly else Field('contact_email'),
)