What is wagtailmodeladmin?

It's an extension for Torchbox's Wagtail CMS that allows you create customisable listing pages for any model in your Wagtail project, and have them appear in the navigation when you log into the admin area. Simply extend the ModelAdmin class, override a few attributes to suit your needs, link it into Wagtail using a few hooks (you can copy and paste from the examples below), and you're good to go.

NOTE: wagtailmodeladmin is now part of Wagtail (from v1.5)

As of version 1.5, Wagtail now comes packaged with wagtailmodeladmin as a contrib app, wagtail.contrib.modeladmin, so you no longer need to install it separately. However, the versions are not identical. Some underlying components/classes have been re-factored, so there will likely be upgrade considerations for projects with more customised `ModelAdmin` implementations (where views and helpers have been extended and overridden).

On the plus side, the new version is better integrated, and provides a more consistent experience, as a developer and user. It also includes bug fixes, performance improvements, and tests, making this standalone version redundant. For these reasons, this version will no longer be maintained.

View the documentation here: http://docs.wagtail.io/en/latest/reference/contrib/modeladmin.html

Upgrading from wagtailmodeladmin to wagtail.contrib.modeladmin

If you only used the core ModelAdmin and ModelAdminGroup classes in your projects, and made use of standard attributes/methods for customisation, migrating to the new version should be as simple as:

1. Follow the installation instructions outlined in the Wagtail docs: http://docs.wagtail.io/en/latest/reference/contrib/modeladmin.html.
2. In wagtail_hooks.py, for each of your custom apps, import the core classes from their new locations in wagtail.contrib.modeladmin.options instead of wagtailmodeladmin.options.
3. Import the wagtail.contrib.modeladmin.options.modeladmin_register method instead of wagtailmodeladmin.options.wagtailmodeladmin_register, and use that to register your classes instead.
4. Remove the old app from your project, by removing wagtailmodeladmin from INSTALLED_APPS, and wagtailmodeladmin.middleware.ModelAdminMiddleware from MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES in your project's settings.

A full list of features:

• A customisable list view, allowing you to control what values are displayed for each item, available filter options, default ordering, and more.
• Access your list views from the CMS easily with automatically generated menu items, with automatic 'active item' highlighting. Control the label text and icons used with easy-to-change attributes on your class.
• An additional ModelAdminGroup class, that allows you to group your related models, and list them together in their own submenu, for a more logical user experience.
• Simple, robust add and edit views for your non-Page models that use the panel configurations defined on your model using Wagtail's edit panels.
• For Page models, the system cleverly directs to Wagtail's existing add and edit views, and returns you back to the correct list page, for a seamless experience.
• Full respect for permissions assigned to your Wagtail users and groups. Users will only be able to do what you want them to!
• All you need to easily hook your ModelAdmin classes into Wagtail, taking care of URL registration, menu changes, and registering any missing model permissions, so that you can assign them to Groups.
• Built to be customisable - While wagtailmodeladmin provides a solid experience out of the box, you can easily use your own templates, and the ModelAdmin class has a large number of methods that you can override or extend, allowing you to customise the behaviour to a greater degree.

Supported list options:

With the exception of bulk actions and date hierarchy, the ModelAdmin class offers similar list functionality to Django's ModelAdmin class, providing:

• control over what values are displayed (via the list_display attribute)
• control over default ordering (via the ordering attribute)
• customisable model-specific text search (via the search_fields attribute)
• customisable filters (via the list_filter attribue)

list_display supports the same fields and methods as Django's ModelAdmin class (including short_description and admin_order_field on custom methods), giving you lots of flexibility when it comes to output. Read more about list_display in the Django docs.

list_filter supports the same field types as Django's ModelAdmin class, giving your users an easy way to find what they're looking for. Read more about list_filter in the Django docs.

Adding functionality, not taking it away

wagtailmodeladmin doesn't interfere with what Wagtail does. If your model extends Wagtail's Page model, or is registered as a Snippet, they'll still be appear in Wagtail's Snippet and Page views within the admin centre. wagtailmodeladmin simply adds an additional, alternative set of views, which you're in control of.

How to install

1. Install the package using pip: pip install wagtailmodeladmin
2. Add wagtailmodeladmin to INSTALLED_APPS in your project settings
3. Add the wagtailmodeladmin.middleware.ModelAdminMiddleware class to MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES in your project settings (it should be fine at the end)
4. Add a wagtail_hooks.py file to your app's folder and extend the ModelAdmin, and ModelAdminGroup classes to produce the desired effect

A simple example

You have a model in your app, and you want a listing page specifically for that model, with a menu item added to the menu in Wagtail's CMS so that you can get to it.

wagtail_hooks.py in your app directory would look something like this:

from wagtailmodeladmin.options import ModelAdmin, wagtailmodeladmin_register
from .models import MyPageModel


class MyPageModelAdmin(ModelAdmin):
    model = MyPageModel
    menu_label = 'Page Model' # ditch this to use verbose_name_plural from model
    menu_icon = 'date' # change as required
    menu_order = 200 # will put in 3rd place (000 being 1st, 100 2nd)
    add_to_settings_menu = False # or True to add your model to the Settings sub-menu
    list_display = ('title', 'example_field2', 'example_field3', 'live')
    list_filter = ('live', 'example_field2', 'example_field3')
    search_fields = ('title',)

# Now you just need to register your customised ModelAdmin class with Wagtail
wagtailmodeladmin_register(MyPageModelAdmin)

The Wagtail CMS menu would look something like this:

Simple example menu preview

A more complicated example

You have an app with several models that you want to show grouped together in Wagtail's admin menu. Some of the models might extend Page, and others might be simpler models, perhaps registered as Snippets, perhaps not. No problem! ModelAdminGroup allows you to group them all together nicely.

wagtail_hooks.py in your app directory would look something like this:

from wagtailmodeladmin.options import (
    ModelAdmin, ModelAdminGroup, wagtailmodeladmin_register)
from .models import (
    MyPageModel, MyOtherPageModel, MySnippetModel, SomeOtherModel)


class MyPageModelAdmin(ModelAdmin):
    model = MyPageModel
    menu_label = 'Page Model' # ditch this to use verbose_name_plural from model
    menu_icon = 'doc-full-inverse' # change as required
    list_display = ('title', 'example_field2', 'example_field3', 'live')
    list_filter = ('live', 'example_field2', 'example_field3')
    search_fields = ('title',)


class MyOtherPageModelAdmin(ModelAdmin):
    model = MyOtherPageModel
    menu_label = 'Other Page Model' # ditch this to use verbose_name_plural from model
    menu_icon = 'doc-full-inverse' # change as required
    list_display = ('title', 'example_field2', 'example_field3', 'live')
    list_filter = ('live', 'example_field2', 'example_field3')
    search_fields = ('title',)


class MySnippetModelAdmin(ModelAdmin):
    model = MySnippetModel
    menu_label = 'Snippet Model' # ditch this to use verbose_name_plural from model
    menu_icon = 'snippet' # change as required
    list_display = ('title', 'example_field2', 'example_field3')
    list_filter = ('example_field2', 'example_field3')
    search_fields = ('title',)


class SomeOtherModelAdmin(ModelAdmin):
    model = SomeOtherModel
    menu_label = 'Some other model' # ditch this to use verbose_name_plural from model
    menu_icon = 'snippet' # change as required
    list_display = ('title', 'example_field2', 'example_field3')
    list_filter = ('example_field2', 'example_field3')
    search_fields = ('title',)


class MyModelAdminGroup(ModelAdminGroup):
    menu_label = 'My App'
    menu_icon = 'folder-open-inverse' # change as required
    menu_order = 200 # will put in 3rd place (000 being 1st, 100 2nd)
    items = (MyPageModelAdmin, MyOtherPageModelAdmin, MySnippetModelAdmin, SomeOtherModelAdmin)

# When using a ModelAdminGroup class to group several ModelAdmin classes together,
# you only need to register the ModelAdminGroup class with Wagtail:
wagtailmodeladmin_register(MyModelAdminGroup)

The Wagtail CMS menu would look something like this:

Complex example menu preview

Notes

• For a list of available icons that can be used, you can enable Wagtail's Styleguide (http://docs.wagtail.io/en/latest/contributing/styleguide.html), and view the page it creates in the CMS for you. The list of icons can be found toward the bottom of the page.