Django Select Drop Down menu Flow - django

Question

What I'm trying to do is a 2 tier search with drop down menus using Select widget, the results will be a listing of the fields from my Meta.model. the first Tier is a a State listing from State.model. Upon a select it is supposed to list out all of the cities with in the selected state, the problem I'm having (and I think its due to my lack of knowledge) is that the city listing is not filtered but a listing of all cities in my database regardless of state. I'm not sure where or how to pass my variable to be able invoke my .filter() statement.
models.py
class Meta(models.Model):
rcabbr = models.CharField(max_length = 15)
slug = models.SlugField(unique=False)
state = models.ForeignKey('State')
rc_state = models.CharField(max_length = 3)
oerp = models.CharField(max_length=18)
subgrp = models.SlugField()
sonus_pic = models.CharField(max_length=8)
ems = models.CharField(max_length=14)
agc = models.CharField(max_length=14)
def __unicode__(self):
return self.rcabbr
class State(models.Model):
name = models.CharField(max_length=2)
slug = models.SlugField(unique=True)
state_long = models.CharField(max_length=15)
owning_site = models.CharField(max_length=12)
def __unicode__(self):
return self.name
return self.state_long
forms.py
class states(forms.Form):
invent = [(k.name,k.state_long) for k in State.objects.all()]
rclist = forms.ChoiceField(widget=forms.Select, choices=invent)
class rateCenter(forms.Form):
invention = [(k.id,k.rcabbr,k.rc_state) for k in Meta.objects.all()]
rcviews = forms.ChoiceField(widget=forms.Select, choices=invention)
views.py
def StateAll(request):
""" This lists out all of the states within the database that
are served"""
rclist = states()
return render(request, 'statelist.html',{'rclist': rclist})
def RcView(request):
""" this should list all the rateCenters within
the state that was selected in StateAll() """
rclist = request.GET['rclist']
forms = rateCenter()
return render(request, 'rclist.html',{'forms': forms})
Logic tells me I should to do my .filter() statement in the forms.py but unsure how to pass the result from the request.GET in StateAll() view. I do have the debug_toolbar installed so I can see the variable u'rclist' and the value u'LA' (my test state). I had this working 100% using hyperlinks however the size of my test database is miniscule in comparison to what is going to be in the production version and HREF's are just not possible.
my understanding is:
ChainedForeignKey(LinkedModel, LinkedModel.field = "field in first Tier", chained_model_field = "current model_field")
so simple model should I think be something like this?
def State(model.models):
name = models.CharField(max_length=20) #this is the state abbreviation
state_long = models.CharFeild(max_length=20)#this is state long form
def Meta(model.models):
state = models.CharField(max_length=20)
slug = models.SlugField(unique = False) #same values as rcabbr
rcabbr = ChainedForeignKey(State, chained_field = "state_long",
chained_model_field = "slug")
.....
Does that look about right........so the First Field in the drop down should be the State_long, once selected the next should be the slug?. at which time the slug should be passed to my urls and the views for the that final page.
I am going to try this however I'm not 100% sure how to do my views and if I need to do something with forms page or does this cover it? The documentation is not user friendly for someone new to this so any input would be most appreciated!

Answer 1

There are many third party libraries django-smart-selects and dajax come to mind - that will automate this for you along with provide you the necessary javascript to filter the form fields on the fly.
If you are investigating those, here is how you would do it with just the django forms:
class RateCenterForm(forms.Form):
rate_center = forms.ModelChoiceField(queryset=Meta.objects.all())
def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
state = kwargs.pop('state')
super(RaterCenterForm, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)
self.fields['rate_center'].queryset = Meta.objects.filter(state=state)
A ModelChoiceField is a select drop down that takes its values from a model.
Now in your view, you would call it like this:
def show_rate_centers(request):
form = RateCenterForm(state='SomeState')
# .. your normal logic here