avoid loading all choices in ModelChoiceField for loading values throug ajax - django

I am trying to create a form with ModelChoice field. The field is filtered by ajax request.
self.fields['center'].queryset = TrainingCenter.objects.all()
this is works fine. but I am loading the values using ajax based on another field.
if I use a empty queryset to load the form without choices, I am getting "Invalid Choice" error on submit.
how to avoid loading all the choices without making error on submission

You can write an EmptySelect widget class that ignores the choices that are passed to it, like this:
from django import forms
class EmptySelect(forms.Select):
def _get_choices(self):
return ()
def _set_choices(self, value):
pass
choices = property(_get_choices, _set_choices)
Then, define your field with the queryset that you want to validate against and configure EmptySelect as your widget.
center = forms.ModelChoiceField(
queryset=TrainingCenter.objects.all(),
widget=EmptySelect
)
You can inherit from other choice widgets too, or even turn EmptySelect into a mixin that you can use with any choice widget.

Related

Django ForeignKey, hide from user select options in dropdown menu

I have standard Django models with ForeignKey.
Django docs:
"ForeignKey is represented by django.forms.ModelChoiceField, which is a ChoiceField whose choices are a model QuerySet."
and
"If the model field has choices set, then the form field’s widget will be set to Select, with choices coming from the model field’s choices."
Now I have dropdown menu with choices.
I don't want dropdown menu where user can see options. I want CharField(textfield or similar) where user type, but still
that must be one of the options from the database for that field. He must type a valid entry.
I tried:
class TransakcijeForm(forms.ModelForm):
model = models.Transakcije
fields = .....
labels = .....
widgets ={'subscriber':forms.TextInput()}
but I receive the message:
"Select a valid choice. That choice is not one of the available choices."
(entry is correct and it works with dropdown menu)
This is my first question here and I'm sorry if I miss the form.
The reason you are getting that error is because your form is still treating the subscriber field as a ModelChoiceField because you are only overriding what widget is rendered to html. You need to change the actual field type of your field. You can define your form like this:
from django.core.exceptions import ValidationError
class TransakcijeForm(forms.ModelForm):
subscriber = forms.CharField()
class Meta:
model = models.Transakcije
fields = ....
labels = ....
def clean_subscriber(self):
subscriber_id = self.cleaned_data['subscriber']
try:
# adjust this line to appropriately get the model object that you need
subscriber = SubscriberModel.objects.get(id=subscriber_id)
return subscriber
except:
raise ValidationError('Subscriber does not exist')
The line subscriber = forms.CharField() will change the form to treat the field as a CharField rather than a ModelChoiceField. Doing this will cause the form to return the subscriber field value as a string, so you will need to get the appropriate model object based on the value of the field. That is what the clean_subscriber(self) function is for. It needs to be named like clean_<field name>(). That function will take the string that is returned by the form, try and find the correct model object and return it if an object is found. If it finds no matching objects it will raise a ValidationError so the form doesn't submit with a bad value.

How to test CheckboxSelectMultiple in save

I have a form (ModelForm) in Django, where I am adding a field for users in the init method as so:
self.fields["users"] = forms.ModelMultipleChoiceField(
queryset=users, widget=forms.CheckboxSelectMultiple, required=False,label="Add Designer(s)"
)
In the save method how I can iterate over the queryset for this field, however, I do not know how I can test if the particular model has been selected/checked. Help, please.
EDIT:
Let's say that you have a form where you want to be able to add users to a certain project, I set the users field as above (also usedMultipleChoiceField) but my real question is how do you determine the state of those checkboxes (which users should be added)?
Managed to fix it using MultipleChoiceField instead of ModelMultipleChoiceField. Then populated the choices with existing event IDs and passed it to the template.
In forms:
choices = forms.MultipleChoiceField(widget = forms.CheckboxSelectMultiple())
In views:
form.fields['choices'].choices = [(x.eventID, "Event ID: " + x.eventID) for x in unapproved]
Had to change some of the logic for finding and editing Event objects too.
The Django documentation states that a ModelMultipleChoiceField normalizes to a QuerySet of model instances. That means in your example, it will only return the users that have been checked. If none have been checked, it will return an empty QuerySet.
If you are overriding your ModelForm save method, you could include something like this:
selected_users = self.cleaned_data.get('users')
for user in selected_users:
project_users.add(user)

Django admin: don't send all options for a field?

One of my Django admin "edit object" pages started loading very slowly because of a ForeignKey on another object there that has a lot of instances. Is there a way I could tell Django to render the field, but not send any options, because I'm going to pull them via AJAX based on a choice in another SelectBox?
You can set the queryset of that ModelChoiceField to empty in your ModelForm.
class MyAdminForm(forms.ModelForm):
def __init__(self):
self.fields['MY_MODEL_CHOIE_FIELD'].queryset = RelatedModel.objects.empty()
class Meta:
model = MyModel
fields = [...]
I think you can try raw_id_fields
By default, Django’s admin uses a select-box interface () for fields that are ForeignKey. Sometimes you don’t want to incur the overhead of having to select all the related instances to display in the drop-down.
raw_id_fields is a list of fields you would like to change into an Input widget for either a ForeignKey or ManyToManyField
Or you need to create a custom admin form
MY_CHOICES = (
('', '---------'),
)
class MyAdminForm(forms.ModelForm):
my_field = forms.ChoiceField(choices=MY_CHOICES)
class Meta:
model = MyModel
fields = [...]
class MyAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
form = MyAdminForm
Neither of the other answers worked for me, so I read Django's internals and tried on my own:
class EmptySelectWidget(Select):
"""
A class that behaves like Select from django.forms.widgets, but doesn't
display any options other than the empty and selected ones. The remaining
ones can be pulled via AJAX in order to perform chaining and save
bandwidth and time on page generation.
To use it, specify the widget as described here in "Overriding the
default fields":
https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.9/topics/forms/modelforms/
This class is related to the following StackOverflow problem:
> One of my Django admin "edit object" pages started loading very slowly
> because of a ForeignKey on another object there that has a lot of
> instances. Is there a way I could tell Django to render the field, but
> not send any options, because I'm going to pull them via AJAX based on
> a choice in another SelectBox?
Source: http://stackoverflow.com/q/37327422/1091116
"""
def render_options(self, *args, **kwargs):
# copy the choices so that we don't risk affecting validation by
# references (I hadn't checked if this works without this trick)
choices_copy = self.choices
self.choices = [('', '---------'), ]
ret = super(EmptySelectWidget, self).render_options(*args, **kwargs)
self.choices = choices_copy
return ret

How to render django form differently based on what user selects?

I have a model and a form like this:
class MyModel(models.Model):
param = models.CharField()
param1 = models.CharField()
param2 = models.CharField()
class MyForm(forms.ModelForm):
class Meta:
model = MyModel
fields = ('param', 'param1', 'param2')
Then I have one drop down menu with different values and based on what value is selected I'm hiding and showing fields of MyForm. Now I have to take one step further and render param2 as a CheckboxInput widget if user selects a certain value from a drop down but in other cases it should be standard text field. So how would I do that?
I know this post is almost a year old, but it took me multiple hours to even find a post related to this topic (this is the only one I found, which came up as related when submitting my own question), so I felt the need to share my solution.
I wanted to have a form that would show and require a text field if an option from a dropdown menu matched a value stored in another model. I had a foreignKey relation between two models and I passed an instance of Model1 into the ModelForm for Model2. If a value chosen for a variable in Model2 matched a variable already set in Model1, I wanted to show and require a textfield. It was basically a "choose Other and then enter your own description" scenario.
I did not want the page to reload (I was trying to have this work in both mobile and desktop browsers with the least delay/reloads and using the same code for both), so I could not use the mentioned multiple forms loading in a view option. I started trying to do it with AJAX as suggested above when I realized I was over thinking the problem.
The answer was using JS and clean methods in the form. I added a non-required field (field1) that was not in Model2 to my Model2Form. I then hid this using jQuery and only displayed it (using jQuery) if the value of another field (field2) matched the value of the variable from Model1. To make that work, I did decide to have a hidden < span > in my template with the pk of the variable so I could easily grab it with jQuery. This jQuery worked perfectly for hiding and showing the field correctly so the user could choose the "other" value and then decided to choose a different one instead (and go back and forth endlessly).
I then used a clean method in my Model2Form for field1 that raised a ValidationError if no value was entered when the value in field2 matched my Model1 variable. I accessed that variable by using "self.other = Model1.variable" in my __ init __ method and then referencing that in the clean_field1 method.
I would have liked to have been able to accomplish this without having to hide and show a field with JS, but I think the only solutions for doing so with views or ajax caused delays/reloads that I did not want. Also, I liked the general simplicity of the method I used, rather than having to figure out how to pass partial forms back and forth through the HTTPRequest.
Update:
In my situation, I was creating entries for lost and found items and if the location where the item was found was not a provided option, then I wanted to show a textbox for the user to enter the location. I created a location object that was set as the "other" location and then displayed the textbox when that object was selected as the "found" location.
In forms.py, I added an extra CharField and use a clean method to check if the field is required and then throw a ValidationError if it wasn't filled in:
class Model2Form(forms.ModelForm):
def __init__(self, Model1, *args, **kwargs):
self.other = Model1.otherLocation
super(Model2Form, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)
...
otherLocation = forms.CharField(
label="Location Description",
max_length=255,
required=False
)
def clean_otherLocation(self):
if self.cleaned_data['locationFound'] == self.other and not self.cleaned_data['otherLocation']:
raise ValidationError("Must describe the location.")
return self.cleaned_data['otherLocation']
Then in my JavaScript, I checked if the value of the "found" location was the "other" location (the value of which I had in a hidden span on my html page). I then used .show() and .hide() on the textbox's parent element as necessary:
$("#id_locationFound").change( function(){
if ($("#id_locationFound").val() == $("#otherLocation").attr("value")){ //if matches "other" location, display textbox; otherwise, hide textbox
$("#id_otherLocation").parent().show();
}else
$("#id_otherLocation").parent().hide();
});
Your best guess would be to trigger a "POST" request when you select something from your drop down menu.
The Value of that "POST" has to correspond your values you use to determine which field you would like to output.
Now you will actually need two forms:
class MyBaseForm(forms.ModelForm):
class Meta:
model = MyModel
fields = ('param', 'param1', 'param2')
class MyDropDownForm(MyBaseForm):
class Meta:
widgets = {
'param2': Select(attrs={...}),
}
So as you can see the DropDownForm has been derived from MyBaseForm to make sure it will have all the same properties. But we have modified the widget of one of the fields.
Now you can update your view. Please note, this is untested Python + Pseudocode
views.py
def myFormView(request):
if request.method == 'POST': # If the form has been submitted...
form = MyBaseForm(request.POST)
#submit button has not been pressed, so the dropdown has triggered the submission.
#Hence we won't safe the form, but reload it
if 'my_real_submitbotton' not in form.data:
if 'param1' == "Dropdown":
form = MyDropDownForm(request.POST)
else:
#do your normal form saving procedure
else:
form = ContactForm() # An unbound form
return render(request, 'yourTemplate.html', {
'form': form,
})
This mechanism does the following:
When the form is submitted it checks if you have pressed the "submit" button or have used a dropdown onChange to trigger a submission. My solution doesn't contain the javascript code you need to trigger the submission with an onChange. I just like to provide a way to solve it.
To use the 'my_real_submitbutton' in form.data construct you will be required to name your submit button:
<input type="submit" name="my_real_submitbutton" value="Submit" />
Of course you can choose any string as Name. :-)
In case of a submit by your dropdown field you must check which value has been selected in this drop down menu. If this value satisfies the condition you want to return a Dropdown Menu you create an instance of DropDownForm(request.POST) otherwise you can leave everything as it is and rerender your template.
On the downside this will refresh your page.
On the upside it will keep all the already entered field values. So no harm done here.
If you would like to avoid the page refresh you can keep my proposed idea but you need to render the new form via AJAX.

Django forms.ChoiceField without validation of selected value

Django ChoiceField "Validates that the given value exists in the list of choices."
I want a ChoiceField (so I can input choices in the view) but I don't want Django to check if the choice is in the list of choices. It's complicated to explain why but this is what I need. How would this be achieved?
You could create a custom ChoiceField and override to skip validation:
class ChoiceFieldNoValidation(ChoiceField):
def validate(self, value):
pass
I'd like to know your use case, because I really can't think of any reason why you would need this.
Edit: to test, make a form:
class TestForm(forms.Form):
choice = ChoiceFieldNoValidation(choices=[('one', 'One'), ('two', 'Two')])
Provide "invalid" data, and see if the form is still valid:
form = TestForm({'choice': 'not-a-valid-choice'})
form.is_valid() # True
Best way to do this from the looks of it is create a forms.Charfield and use a forms.Select widget. Here is an example:
from django import forms
class PurchaserChoiceForm(forms.ModelForm):
floor = forms.CharField(required=False, widget=forms.Select(choices=[]))
class Meta:
model = PurchaserChoice
fields = ['model', ]
For some reason overwriting the validator alone did not do the trick for me.
As another option, you could write your own validator
from django.core.exceptions import ValidationError
def validate_all_choices(value):
# here have your custom logic
pass
and then in your form
class MyForm(forms.Form):
my_field = forms.ChoiceField(validators=[validate_all_choices])
Edit: another option could be defining the field as a CharField but then render it manually in the template as a select with your choices. This way, it can accept everything without needing a custom validator