Django Extensions – Installing and Implementing Extensions

In this article, we will see the Django extensions functionality to extend the functionality offered by default in Django.

Various Important Django Extensions

The various important extensions provided are as follows:

• Admin extensions
• Command extensions
• Debugger tags
• Field Extensions
• Model Extensions
• Validators
• Powershell

The detailed analysis is given in the following table

1. Admin Extensions

Some of the important Extensions are:

2. Command Extensions

Some of the most used command extensions are:

We will see more about the shell – shell_plus in the later sections.

3. Debugger Tags

With Debugger Tags, we can debug Django templates easily. These template tags provide three filters – IPDB, PDB or WDB

The syntax is:

{% load debugger_tags %}

{% for object in objects %}
{{object | ipdb/pdb/wdb }}
{% endfor %}

Note: To use the filters, we need to load the debugger tags at the top of the template files

{% load debugger_tags %}

4. Field Extensions

Some of the useful field extensions are:

5. Model Extensions

These are the important Model extensions:

6. Validators

Some of the important Validators provided by Django Extensions are:

Installing Django Extensions

We can install the extensions using pip command itself. Run the code

pip install django-extensions

We need to mention the Django extensions in our settings.py as well. So just add the following in the INSTALLED_APPS directory.

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    #......
    #......
    #......
    'django_extensions'
]

That’s it, the Django extensions are ready to use.

Implementing Django Extensions

Now we will see how to use important extensions in our Django project

1. Implementing Admin Extensions

Consider the BlogModel we built in a previous article with the following fields in the models.py file

from django.db import models

class BlogModel(models.Model):
    id = models.IntegerField(primary_key=True)
    blog_title = models.CharField(max_length=20)
    blog = models.TextField()

    def __str__(self):
        return f"Blog: {self.blog_title}"

Also, consider a CommentModel which contains the comments for a specific blog from the BlogModel Table. Add the Comment Model below the BlogModel in the models.py file:

class CommentModel(models.Model):
    your_name = models.CharField(max_length=20)
    comment_text = models.TextField()
    blog = models.ForeignKey('BlogModel', on_delete=models.CASCADE)
    
    def __str__(self):
        return f"Comment by Name: {self.your_name}"

Note that the blog field is the FK connecting the BlogModel. Now in the admin.py file, we will apply admin extensions to the Comment Model template.

from .models import *
from django_extensions.admin import ForeignKeyAutocompleteAdmin
 
@admin.register(CommentModel)
class BookModelAdmin(ForeignKeyAutocompleteAdmin):

    related_search_fields = {
        'blog':('blog_title',)
    }

    #Fields
    fields =('your_name','comment_text','blog')

Do check out the Admin Template article for more information about Admin templates

Now run the server and go to the admin site

See how the search option appears for the FK blog field.

2. Implementing shell_plus with Ipython

To run shell_plus with Ipython, we first need to install it.

Ipython is an interactive shell built for Python. It makes the shell environment efficient and easy to use. It provides useful environment tools and commands which we can use.

To install IPython, run the command:

pip install ipython

Now run the shell_plus along with ipython using the command below

python manage.py shell_plus --ipython

See, all the models present in the project are auto-loaded in the shell.

Some other important extensions

We will now see some of the most used extensions here

1. RandomCharField Extension

You can add this Field in your Model using the command below:

from django.db import models
from django_extensions.db.fields import RandomCharField

class ModelName(models.Model):
    Field1 = RandomCharField(length=12, unique =True, include_punctuation=True)

2. Validators

The syntax for this extension in models.py is:

from django_extensions.validators import HexValidator

class ModelName(models.Model):
    Field1 = models.CharField(max_length=80, validators=[HexValidator(length=64)])

Conclusion

That’s it, guys!! This was all about Django Extensions. I hope you have gained good knowledge about these extensions. Do check out the official Documentation for other Django Extensions.

We have come to an end of our Django tutorial series. Do check out our other articles on Django. Keep Coding !!