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Help yourself find things in the admin more quickly by adding some search and filtering functionality. We’ll add a search box to the top of the list view, and add some logical filters to a menu on the side of the page.
Resources:
Django Admin documentation on ModelAdmin.list_filter
Django Model documentation
Python documentation on the math module
[SOUND] Welcome back.
0:00
Now that we've covered the basics
of the admin and what it can do,
0:06
let's get into some details
about the list view.
0:09
There are two basic pieces
of the Django admin.
0:13
The list view, where you can see a list of
0:16
all the objects you've created
in a particular model.
0:19
We can see all of our courses
in a list for example.
0:22
Then there's the detail view,
0:26
where we can dive into the specifics
of a particular object.
0:28
The detail view is also where
we've been making changes
0:31
to the objects in our database.
0:34
In this stage, we're going to
be dealing with the list view.
0:37
Our first step is to make
the list view more helpful to us
0:41
by adding some tools to make it easier
to find what we're looking for.
0:45
Once we have a lot of objects in our
database, like several dozen courses and
0:49
several hundred quiz questions,
0:53
we won't be able to see everything at
a glance in the list view like we can now.
0:55
So open up workspaces, and let's add some
tools that will help us find what we need.
1:00
Go ahead and start your server,
and log in to the admin.
1:06
As you can see, when we look at this list
of courses, it's pretty easy to find
1:10
what we're looking for
because there are only a few courses.
1:14
But some day, our site will have expanded
a lot and will have a lot more courses.
1:17
So let's add a search box so that we
can type in the title of a course or
1:23
a keyword and
find our courses more easily.
1:27
This is really easy.
1:30
If we wanted to add a search field to the
CourseAdmin, we just go to the class for
1:32
that model, CourseAdmin, and
1:36
add this particular list,
it's called search_fields.
1:39
So we just type in search_fields,
make it a list,
1:43
and then into this list we feed
the names of the model attributes we
1:46
want to be searched when we search for
a particular term.
1:51
So for courses, we probably want to scan
the title, and maybe even the description.
1:55
Now we just save, and
whenever we refresh this page we see this
2:03
awesome search box, and
we can even test it out.
2:08
Like we can search for all of the Ruby
courses, and we get back Ruby Basics.
2:12
Or we can search for
all the Python courses and
2:17
we get back all of those courses.
2:19
You can add this search box for
any list view in your admin.
2:22
Just add the search fields list and pass
in the names of the attributes from your
2:25
model that you want to be scanned whenever
you put something in the search box.
2:30
Let's add a search box to one more model.
2:34
What about the questions?
2:37
So down here under the QuestionAdmin
we just type in search fields, and
2:39
for questions it's probably best if we
2:44
scan the prompt whenever we
want to search for something.
2:48
So we save that, go back to courses,
let's try these multiple choice questions.
2:51
And we see our handy search box.
2:56
This is really awesome, and
2:58
it's a really easy way to make
your website a lot more useable.
2:59
Now let's add some filters
to this side of the screen.
3:04
A filter is the kind of thing
where when you click on it,
3:07
you can limit what you see to only
items created in the last month, or
3:10
that only start with the letter A,
or something like that.
3:14
Basically a filter just brings
back a group of objects
3:17
that meet the criteria you
specified in the filter.
3:21
So for our courses list,
3:24
let's add a filter that lets us limit
by the date a course was created.
3:26
So here under course we
just type in list_filter,
3:31
and then the only item in this list
is going to be the field created_at.
3:38
Now we go back over to courses, and
there on the side we can see our filter.
3:44
So whenever we click on something,
for example, today,
3:50
we can see that Ruby Basics is the only
course that was created today.
3:53
If we go back to any date we
can see all of our courses.
3:57
Let's add the is_live attribute
to the filter too, so
4:01
that we can see all of the courses that
are currently live on our website.
4:04
So we just add is_live to this list and
save it.
4:10
Now when we refresh,
we see is live down here.
4:16
So we can see that Ruby Basics, Python
Testing, and Python Basics are all live.
4:21
Now we can stack these filters.
4:27
So we can say, for example, that we
wanna see the courses created today
4:29
that are also live, and
we see we only get back Ruby Basics.
4:34
If we wanted to see all the courses
that we created in the past month
4:38
that are not live,
we don't have any results
4:44
because we don't have any courses
that fit both of those criteria.
4:47
Pretty neat?
4:51
Before the next video,
why don't you try to think of some
4:53
other filters that might be
useful additions to your site?
4:56
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