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Customizing Admin Interface

Django's administration interface, or admin interface for short, is one of the most powerful features of Django. It provides a ready-to-use user interface for site administrators to conduct CRUD operations on the models in your application. However, as powerful as it is, there may be times when you want to customize the admin interface to better suit your needs. This tutorial will guide you on how to customize the Django admin interface.

Basic Admin Customization​

To get started, let's first understand how to perform some basic customization. We will cover two aspects here - changing the header text and title of the admin interface.

Changing Admin Header​

To change the header of the Django admin interface, you need to create a new HTML file called base_site.html in your templates directory. Here's the directory structure:

your_project/
    your_app/
        templates/
            admin/
                base_site.html

In this base_site.html file, overwrite the branding block to change the header:

{% extends "admin/base_site.html" %}

{% block branding %}
<h1 id="site-name"><a href="{% url 'admin:index' %}">Your New Admin Header</a></h1>
{% endblock %}

Changing Admin Title​

To change the title of the admin interface, you need to overwrite the title block in the same base_site.html file:

{% extends "admin/base_site.html" %}

{% block title %}
Your New Admin Title
{% endblock %}

Advanced Admin Customization​

Now, let's move on to some advanced customization. We will cover how to add search fields, filters, and customize the list display in the admin interface.

Search Fields​

To add search fields in the admin interface, you can use the search_fields attribute in your admin class. For example:

class YourModelAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    search_fields = ['field1', 'field2']

admin.site.register(YourModel, YourModelAdmin)

Here, field1 and field2 are the names of the fields in YourModel you want to make searchable.

Filters​

To add filters in the admin interface, you can use the list_filter attribute in your admin class:

class YourModelAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    list_filter = ['field1', 'field2']

admin.site.register(YourModel, YourModelAdmin)

Here, field1 and field2 are the names of the fields in YourModel you want to make filterable.

Customize List Display​

To customize the list display in the admin interface, you can use the list_display attribute in your admin class:

class YourModelAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    list_display = ['field1', 'field2']

admin.site.register(YourModel, YourModelAdmin)

Here, field1 and field2 are the names of the fields in YourModel you want to display in the list view.

With these basic and advanced customizations, you can tailor the Django admin interface to better suit your needs. Remember, the Django admin interface is a powerful tool, and with a little bit of customization, it can become an even more potent ally in managing your application's data.