django-admin-sortable2

Another generic drag-and-drop ordering for sorting objects in the list view of the Django admin interface. It is a rewrite of https://github.com/iambrandontaylor/django-admin-sortable using another approach.

This plugin offers simple mixin classes which augment the functionality of any existing class derived from admin.ModelAdmin, admin.StackedInline or admin.TabluarInline. It thus makes it very easy to integrate with existing models and their model admin interfaces.

These admin mixin classes slightly modify the admin views of a sortable model. There is no need to derive your model class from a special base model class, nor you have to add a hard coded ordering field to your model. Use your existing ordered models, just as you always did.

Build status

Installation

From PyPI:

pip install django-admin-sortable2

From github:

pip install -e git+https://github.com/jrief/django-admin-sortable2#egg=django_admin_sortable2

In settings.py add:

INSTALLED_APPS = (
    ...
    'adminsortable',
    ...
)

Integrate your models

Each database model which shall be sortable, requires a position value in its model description. Rather than defining a base class, which contains such a positional value in a hard coded field, this plugin lets reuse existing fields or attempts to delegate this responsibility to the programmer. Therefore this plugin can be applied in situations, where your model is derived from an existing abstract model, which already contains any kind of position value. The only requirement for this plugin is, that this position value is specified as the primary field used for sorting. This in Django is declared through the model Meta class. Example models.py:

class SortableBook(models.Model):
    title = models.CharField('Title', null=True, blank=True, max_length=255)
    my_order = models.PositiveIntegerField(blank=False, null=False)

    class Meta(object):
        ordering = ('my_order',)

Here the ordering field is named my_order, but any other name is valid as well. The only requirement is, that my_order is the first field in ordering in the model's Meta class.

The field used to store the ordering position may be any kind of numeric model field offered by Django. Use one of these models fields:

models.BigIntegerField
models.IntegerField
models.PositiveIntegerField (recommended)
models.PositiveSmallIntegerField (recommended for small sets)
models.SmallIntegerField

These model fields also work, but are not recommended:

models.DecimalField
models.FloatField

Do not make this field unique!

Make a list view sortable

Next to the action checkbox, a draggable area is added to each entry line. The user than may click on any item and vertically drag that item to a new position.

If one or more items shall be moved to another page, this can easily been done by selecting them though the action checkbox. Then the user shall click on a predefined action from the pull down menu on the top of the list view.

Integrate into a list view

In admin.py, add a mixin class to augment the functionality for sorting:

from django.contrib import admin
from adminsortable.admin import SortableAdminMixin
from models import MyModel

class MyModelAdmin(SortableAdminMixin, admin.ModelAdmin):
    pass
admin.site.register(MyModel, MyModelAdmin)

that's it! The list view of the model admin interface now adds a column with a sensitive area. By clicking on that area, the user can move that row up or down. If he wants to move it to another page, he can do that as a bulk operation, using the admin actions.

Make a stacked or tabular inline view sortable

The interface for a sortable stacked inline view looks exactly the same. If you click on an stacked inline's field title, this whole inline form can be moved up and down.

The interface for a sortable tabular inline view adds a sensitive area to each draggable row. These rows then can be moved up and down.

After moving a tabular or stacked inline, save the model form to persist its sorting order.

Integrate into a detail view:

from django.contrib import admin
from adminsortable.admin import SortableInlineAdminMixin
from models import MySubModel, MyModel

class MySubModelInline(SortableInlineAdminMixin, admin.TabularInline):  # or admin.StackedInline
    model = MySubModel

class MyModelAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    inlines = (MySubModelInline,)
admin.site.register(MyModel, MyModelAdmin)

Initial data

In case you just changed your model to contain an additional field named, say my_order, which does not yet contain any values, then you may set initial ordering values by pasting this code snipped into the Django shell:

shell> ./manage.py shell
Python ...
>>>
from myapp.models import *
order = 0
for obj in MySortableModel.objects.all():
    order += 1
    obj.my_order = order
    obj.save()

or using South migrations:

shell> ./manage.py datamigration myapp set_order

this creates an empty migration named something like migrations/0123_set_order.py. Edit the file and change it into a data migration:

class Migration(DataMigration):
    def forwards(self, orm):
        order = 0
        for obj in orm.MyModel.objects.all():
            order += 1
            obj.my_order = order
            obj.save()

then apply the changes to the database using:

shell> ./manage.py migrate myapp

Note on unique indices on the position field

From a design consideration, one might be tempted to add a unique index on the ordering field. But in practice this has serious drawbacks:

MySQL has a feature (or bug?) which requires to use the ORDER BY clause in bulk updates on unique fields.

SQLite has the same bug which is even worse, because it does neither update all the fields in one transaction, nor does it allow to use the ORDER BY clause in bulk updates.

Only PostgreSQL does it "right" in the sense, that it updates all fields in one transaction and afterwards rebuilds the unique index. Here one can not use the ORDER BY clause during updates, which is senseless anyway.

See https://code.djangoproject.com/ticket/20708 for details.

Therefore I strongly advise against setting unique=True on the position field, unless you want unportable code, which only works with Postgres databases.

Why another plugin?

All available plugins which add functionality to make list views for the Django admin interface sortable, offer a base class to be used instead of models.Model. This abstract base class then contains a hard coded position field, additional methods and meta directives. The problem with such an approach is twofold. First, an IS-A relationship is abused to augment the functionality of a class. This is bad OOP practice. A base class shall only be used to reflect a real IS-A relation which specializes this class. For instance: A mammal is an animal, a primate is a mammal, homo sapiens is a primate, etc. Here the inheritance model is appropriate, but it would be wrong to derive from homo sapiens to reflect a human which is able to hunt using bows and arrows.

So, a sortable model is not an unsortable model. Making a model sortable, means to augment its functionality. This in OOP design does not qualify for an IS-A relationship.

Fortunately, Python makes it very easy, to distinguish between real IS-A relationships and augmenting functionalities. The latter cases are handled by mixin classes. They offer additional functionality for a class, without deriving from the base class.

Also consider the case, when someone wants to augment some other functionality of a model class. If he also derives from models.Model, he would create another abstract intermediate class. Someone who wants to use both functional augmentations, now is in trouble. Or he has to choose between one of the two, or if he derives from both. In the latter case, his model class inherits the base class models.Model twice. This results in a diamond shape inheritance, which shall be avoided under all circumstances.

By using a mixin class rather than deriving from a special abstract base class, these problems can be avoided!

Related projects

Release history

0.2.2 Distinction between different versions of jQuery in case django-cms is installed side by side.
0.2.0 Added sortable stacked and tabular inlines.
0.1.2 Fixed: All field names other than "order" are now allowed.
0.1.1 Fixed compatibility issue when used together with django-cms.
0.1.0 first version published on PyPI.
0.0.1 first working release.

a1tus/django-admin-sortable2