I have already defined a custom admin action for my model which works perfectly as expected. I also looked at multiple ways of adding a button to the admin change form page here on SO. The only step that I am missing is how do I make a button in the change form page execute my custom admin action with current object?

The goal is to allow admin to inspect every object individually and perform an action on them without needing to go back to list view, selecting the inspected object, and executing the action from the list.

My custom admin action looks like this:

def admin_apply_change(modeladmin, request, queryset): # loop over objects in query set and perform action 

I am assuming there is a simple and clean way of calling this action in admin change form, where the queryset would only contain the currently opened object the admin is looking at.

NOTE: It would be preferable if the button is at the bottom of the change form, next to Save button instead of being at top with History which is not very visible.

Solution

See the answer below by Remi for the solution. In order to make it work the following corrections are needed:

1. In the override of response_change initialization of some variables is missing:

   opts = self.model._meta pk_value = obj._get_pk_val() preserved_filters = self.get_preserved_filters(request) 

2. New inclusion tag custom_submit_row should be placed in templatetags and not in admin (see docs for custom templatetags)

3. This is the oversight you could lose some time on. In change_form.html you not only have to change the suggested line:

   {% if save_on_top %}{% block submit_buttons_top %}{% submit_row %}{% endblock %}{% endif %} 

   but also the more important line at the bottom where submit_row appears:

   {% block submit_buttons_bottom %}{% submit_row %}{% endblock %} 

   It is located just above the javascript block in change_form.html.

4 Answers

You could take a look at the change_form_template and set it to a custom template of yours and override the response_change method:

class MyModelAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin): # A template for a customized change view: change_form_template = 'path/to/your/custom_change_form.html' def response_change(self, request, obj): opts = self.model._meta pk_value = obj._get_pk_val() preserved_filters = self.get_preserved_filters(request) if "_customaction" in request.POST: # handle the action on your obj redirect_url = reverse('admin:%s_%s_change' % (opts.app_label, opts.model_name), args=(pk_value,), current_app=self.admin_site.name) redirect_url = add_preserved_filters({'preserved_filters': preserved_filters, 'opts': opts}, redirect_url) return HttpResponseRedirect(redirect_url) else: return super(MyModelAdmin, self).response_change(request, obj) 

Copy the change_form.html from your site-packages/django/contrib/admin/templates/change_form.html and edit the line 40

 {% if save_on_top %}{% block submit_buttons_top %}{% submit_row %}{% endblock %}{% endif %} 

to

 {% if save_on_top %}{% block submit_buttons_top %}{% custom_submit_row %}{% endblock %}{% endif %} 

Also check the line:

 {% block submit_buttons_bottom %}{% submit_row %}{% endblock %} 

just above the javascript block.

Then you can register a new inclusion tag somewhere in your admin.py or add it to templatetags:

@register.inclusion_tag('path/to/your/custom_submit_line.html', takes_context=True) def custom_submit_row(context): """ Displays the row of buttons for delete and save. """ opts = context['opts'] change = context['change'] is_popup = context['is_popup'] save_as = context['save_as'] ctx = { 'opts': opts, 'show_delete_link': ( not is_popup and context['has_delete_permission'] and change and context.get('show_delete', True) ), 'show_save_as_new': not is_popup and change and save_as, 'show_save_and_add_another': ( context['has_add_permission'] and not is_popup and (not save_as or context['add']) ), 'show_save_and_continue': not is_popup and context['has_change_permission'], 'is_popup': is_popup, 'show_save': True, 'preserved_filters': context.get('preserved_filters'), } if context.get('original') is not None: ctx['original'] = context['original'] return ctx 

The contents of your custom_submit_line.html:

{% load i18n admin_urls %} <div> {% if show_save %}<input type="submit" value="{% trans 'Save' %}" name="_save" />{% endif %} {% if show_delete_link %} {% url opts|admin_urlname:'delete' original.pk|admin_urlquote as delete_url %} <p><a href="{% add_preserved_filters delete_url %}">{% trans "Delete" %}</a></p> {% endif %} {% if show_save_as_new %}<input type="submit" value="{% trans 'Save as new' %}" name="_saveasnew" />{% endif %} {% if show_save_and_add_another %}<input type="submit" value="{% trans 'Save and add another' %}" name="_addanother" />{% endif %} {% if show_save_and_continue %}<input type="submit" value="{% trans 'Save and continue editing' %}" name="_continue" />{% endif %} <input type="submit" value="{% trans 'Custom Action' %}" name="_customaction" /> </div> 

It is a lot of code, but mostly copy/paste. Hope that helps.

Most people probably do this without thinking, though it wasn't clear from the answer that the admin change form should be simply extended rather than overwritten entirely.

custom_change_form.html

{% extends "admin/change_form.html" %} {% if save_on_top %}{% block submit_buttons_top %}{% custom_submit_row %}{% endblock %}{% endif %} {% block submit_buttons_bottom %}{% custom_submit_row %}{% endblock %} 

Alternatively, you can just extend the submit_line.html file adding your custom button (both at the top and in the bottom of the change page).

Your file templates/adminyour_app_name/your_model_name.html will start with:

{% extends "admin/submit_line.html" %} {% load i18n admin_urls %} <div> {% block submit-row %} ... YOUR BUTTONS HERE ... {% endblock %} </div> 

Based on Remi's answer a cleaner solution for templates to override submit-row in submit_line.html template.

{% extends "admin/submit_line.html" %} {% load i18n admin_urls %} <div> {% block submit-row %} {{ block.super }} {% if custom_buttons_template %}{% include custom_buttons_template %}{% endif %} {% endblock %} 

In change_view you can add custom_buttons_template into the context so you can customize custom buttons on each model separatly.

def change_view(self, request, object_id, form_url='', extra_context=None): extra_context = extra_context or {} extra_context['custom_buttons_template'] = 'admin/test.html' return super(TransactionFileAdmin, self).change_view( request, object_id, form_url, extra_context=extra_context, ) 

After this my template will load admin/test.html and insert the content directly into submit line before Save button. If you would like to place your buttons elsewhere you can copy full submit_line.html and put custom_buttons_template anywhere.