Using django-adminlte3 in a Project

django-adminlte3 is a Python module which "provides the functionality of the AdminLTE3 theme to Django developers in the form of standard base templates. Optional styling for Django's built-in admin interface is also provided."

From https://pypi.org/project/django-adminlte3/

In short, it lets you make your Django projects look very pretty with a consistent looking UI for minimal effort. Kudos to the AdminLTE folks for the template, and to the Python dev who created this module.

For documentation of the module, see https://django-adminlte2.readthedocs.io

Lets get to it.

NOTES:

This falls under the "if you break it, you get to keep both pieces" type licensing. ;-)
I mostly wrote this for my future self, as otherwise inevitably I'll forget how to use this. So any/all goofs/etc. are my own. It may also change over time. Fair warning.
Of course, if it benefits you in any way, fantastic. If this saves anyone even a minute of time, I take it as a win. To me time is one of the greatest gifts we can offer another person.
Feel free to provide feedback/corrections, though bear with me if I'm slow in responding.
This is by no means a Django tutorial. For that I suggest starting with the official Django documentation which includes a nice walkthrough and tutorial. There are also a ton of useful books, online course, YouTube videos, etc., which can cover the basics far better than I can. I may post what's worked for me at some point but no promises. The assumption here is that you have some familiarity with Django.
This repo contains all the content explained below, minus the files/folders created by the virtualenv command. So you could clone this repo and follow along by looking at those files, skipping steps as needed (since I already created the Django project and app, template files, etc.). I've tried to make notes where appropriate. However, I explain the steps to build a Django project that uses the django-adminlte3 pip module from the ground up so that you can do this yourself and learn the process. Note template files ending in .example in the repo are basically there so that, if you want to try them out, you simply rename the file by removing that extension, then reload your browser to see how having that customized template affects things.

Setup Project Environment

To build a Django application which utilizes the django-adminlte3 pip module, here are the general steps:

Create a folder to hold your Django project (e.g., Django-AdminLTE3) and navigate into it. This is done so we can contain the development environment within a Python virtual environment.

mkdir Django-AdminLTE3
cd Django-AdminLTE3

Build a virtual environment and activate it:

# create venv environ, which adds a ./bin, ./include, and ./lib directories
virtualenv .
source bin/activate

Verify you're in the virtual environment by showing the installed pip modules, then install the necessary pip modules for doing Django/AdminLTE development, and finally verify they were installed:

pip list
# pip install -r requirements.txt
# Or just do the following:
pip install django
pip install django-adminlte3
# Verify the modules are there
pip list

Create Django project (e.g., TestAdminLTE3) and your app (e.g., TestApp)

[Skip if you cloned the repo]

django-admin startproject TestAdminLTE3
cd TestAdminLTE3
django-admin startapp TestApp

Run migrations

[Skip if you cloned the repo]

python3 manage.py migrate

Create superuser account (so you can access Django admin pages):

[If you cloned the repo, you can either run this to create your own username, or skip and use Username/password: frank/frank]

python3 manage.py createsuperuser

Fill in username and password as needed. Email optional.

Run server to verify things are working

python3 manage.py runserver

Load the default page (what typically is http://127.0.0.1:8000) to verify things are working.

[NOTE: If you cloned the repo, at this point you'll already have a setup which shows the impact AdminLTE3 can have on your site. Basically you're where you'd be if you finished the numbered steps below. From there you can simply rename the other template files that end in .example to see how things are impacted by creating such templates. But it may not have quite the impact as seeing the changes as you go.]

Load the admin page (what typically is http://127.0.0.1:8000/admin) to see what the default looks like before adding AdminLTE to the mix. Login and make note of how things look. Then logout (link in upper right) and click the upper left to reload the Admin page itself.
Modify Django-AdminLTE3/TestAdminLTE3/TestAdminLTE3/settings.py

...
INSTALLED_APPS = [
    # For apps which use customized AdminLTE templates stored in
    # <app>/templates/adminlte/lib/, be sure to place these apps
    # BEFORE adminlte3 or the customized templates won't be found
    'TestApp',

    # General use templates & template tags (should appear first before apps)
    'adminlte3',

    # Optional: Django admin theme (must be before django.contrib.admin)
    'adminlte3_theme',
...

From above in settings.py, Django will search in the order of the installed apps for a matching template. This is why the order matters. If you use customized AdminLTE template files in your app but it is located BELOW the adminlte app, your customized templates will never be reached.

Reload the admin page. You should now see how AdminLTE affects the admin login page. Login again and make note of how things look now. Pretty sweet!

If you've done the steps above, you have the pieces in place, and from the admin page you already have a taste for what AdminLTE can do. Time to actually make use of this.

Creating Your First Page

Now, if you want to simply get a taste for what this module can do for you, create a template page index.html in

Django-AdminLTE3/TestAdminLTE3/TestApp/templates/TestApp/

(creating any subdirectories needed) which contains the following:

{% extends 'adminlte/base.html' %}

<!-- Set title of app -->
{% block title %}TestApp{% endblock %}

<!-- Specify content of main body of page -->
{% block content %}
<h1>Test site using django-adminlte3 pip module.</h1>

<p>Let us see how this works.</p>

  For docs, check out <a href="https://pypi.org/project/django-adminlte-3/">docs</a>
{% endblock %}

So what's going on here?

Just as with any Django templates, you're using Jinja2 formatting with the usual {% %} tags in your template file
Line 1 extends the default AdminLTE base.html file included by the pip module, allowing you to override different blocks defined in that template. (This is typically the minimum you'll want to do.)
The two blocks, title and content, which are defined in base.html, are overridden, resulting in their contents appearing on the page. These were chosen just to show how things fit together (think "hello world"). If you did not override these (i.e., if you deleted all but the first line), you'd see whatever was defined in the default AdminLTE template base.html file.

Of course, a template only works if there's a Django view accessing it. So now create your first view.

Modify Django-AdminLTE3/TestAdminLTE3/TestApp/views.py as follows:

from django.shortcuts import render
from django.views import generic

# Create your views here.

class IndexView(generic.TemplateView):
    template_name = 'TestApp/index.html'

Here the Django generic TemplateView class was viewed to keep it simple. This view simply loads that corresponding template file.

Next, we need to make sure Django has a URL pattern configured to reach this app's view. Here we use the best practice of defining URL patterns within an app, which provides portability should we want to deploy this app in another Django project.

Create file Django-AdminLTE3/TestAdminLTE3/TestApp/urls.py to define URL patterns to use in the TestApp app:

from django.urls import path
from . import views

app_name = 'TestApp'
urlpatterns = [
    path('', views.IndexView.as_view(), name='index'),
]

Since there's just one view, index.html, we specify the URL pattern '' so it's the home/index page for the TestApp.

Modify the main Django project file Django-AdminLTE3/TestAdminLTE3/TestAdminLTE3/urls.py to stitch the TestApp URL patterns into the overall Django project URL patterns:

from django.contrib import admin
from django.urls import include,path

urlpatterns = [
    path('admin/', admin.site.urls),
    path('', include('TestApp.urls')),
]

Here, since the only app is TestApp, and we want it to load on the main page of the project, we specify '' as the URL pattern. This means visiting the main page (e.g., http://127.0.0.1:8000) maps to this URL pattern, which flows through to the TestApp urls.py file, which in turn maps to the IndexView, which then loads the TestApp index.html template file.

Load the main page again (what typically is http://127.0.0.1:8000). Voila!
Customize AdminLTE templates as needed.
Profit!

Ok ok, kidding. So let's take this slow.

Now, that default page is nice to look at. It contains various elements, from a header, footer, and side navigation bar, to a logo and a user panel, etc. But none of them actually work. So let's continue for just a little.

Short Aside: How Does This Work?

I like to understand how things work if I'm going to use them. So in that spirit, for those similarly inclined, note that when you install the django-adminlte3 Python module using pip, it gets installed like any other Python module into the site-packages directory. For example, if you followed the steps above, take a look in

Django-AdminLTE3/lib/python<version>/site-packages

There you will find directories adminlte3, adminlte3_theme, django, and django_adminlte3, among others. adminlte3 contains the actual AdminLTE template files. Note you don't modify these. If you wish to customize things, you create your own versions, which you store in a path that matches the default ones (more on that in a minute). And in these you place an {% extend <file> %} line at the top to pull that default file in and then modify it as needed. But it's worth knowing where the default ones live in case you want to look at them. Either that or download the official AdminLTE files and look through those for examples to work with. To see examples of what the template offers, check out their live preview page.

Now on with the show.

Modifying the Sidebar

Next, let's say you wish to modify the sidebar, which is defined in

./adminlte/lib/_main_sidebar.html

To do so, recreate that path in your app, e.g.,

Django-AdminLTE3/TestAdminLTE3/TestApp/templates/adminlte/lib/_main_sidebar.html

and adjust this file as needed. For example,

{% extends 'adminlte/lib/_main_sidebar.html' %}
{% load static %}

<!-- Set upper left corner logo -->
{% block logo %}
    <a href="/" class="brand-link">
        <img src="{%static 'TestApp/logo.png' %}" alt="My Logo" class="brand-image img-circle elevation-3" style="opacity: .8">
        {% block logo_text %}<span class="brand-text font-weight-light">TestApp</span>{% endblock %}
    </a>
{% endblock logo %}

<!-- Remove user panel from left sidebar -->
{% block user_panel %}
{% endblock user_panel %}

<!-- Set header for side navbar -->
{% block nav_heading %}
WHERE TO GO
{% endblock nav_heading %}

<!-- Define navbar links -->
{% block nav_links %}
    <li>
        <a href="/">
            <i class="fa fa-home"></i>
            <span>Home</span>
        </a>
    </li>
    <li>
        <a href="/admin">
            <i class="fa fa-cog"></i>
            <span>Admin</span>
        </a>
    </li>
{% endblock nav_links %}

The file above

Extends the default AdminLTE _main_sidebar.html file
Sets a logo that appears in the upper left corner
- NOTES:
  - For this to appear, you must have a file named logo.png that is stored in Django-AdminLTE3/TestAdminLTE3/TestApp/static/TestApp/
  - This taps Django's use of static files.
    - This feature is used to designate all your static content (images, media, etc.). In production, you typically optimize your webserver(s) config to host your static content separately from your dynamic content. The former doesn't need to be processed, so this allows for it be served from CDNs or other services optimized for static content.
    - While developing, the only thing you need to keep in mind is that any static content you add will NOT be picked up until you restart your server (CTRL-C, python3 manage.py runserver). So if you add the logo file, reload your webpage, and it's not appearing, keep this in mind.
    - When it's time for production, you'd first set STATIC_ROOT, either as an environment variable or in the project's settings file (Django-AdminLTE3/TestAdminLTE3/TestAdminLTE3/settings.py). Then you run
      python3 manage.py collectstatic
      any time you add/change static files in your various apps.
      
      [NOTE: If you see this error: django.core.exceptions.ImproperlyConfigured: You're using the staticfiles app without having set the STATIC_ROOT setting to a filesystem path, it's because you did not set STATIC_ROOT.]
      
      There's another setting, STATIC_URL, which be default is set to '/static/' in your project's settings file. This points to where all the static content will be collected together.
      - This is why the repetitive directory pattern exists within each app:
        <projectname>/<APPNAME>/static/<APPNAME>/...
        When you run the collectstatic command, all the files/folders in each app's static directory is collected together and placed under
        <projectname>/static
        By storing things this way, you know your app's static files will be stored in
        <projectname>/static/<APPNAME>/...
        This is similar to Django's concept of "namespaces" as applied to template files, which also follow this pattern, with template files stored in <projectname>/<APPNAME>/templates/<APPNAME>/.
Removes the default user_panel shown (by declaring the block but otherwise having it empty)
Sets the heading of the side navbar
Defines links for Home and Admin, setting the icons next to them to a home and cog, respectively

Save that file. Reload the main page again, and you should see the sidebar navigation has changed.

Next Steps

Similar to the file _main_sidebar.html, there's also _main_header.html and _main_footer.html. If you wish to modify those elements, simply create these files in the same directory as _main_sidebar.html, then edit them accordingly. I have provided examples in the repo you can use just to get an idea.

Note the documentation for django-adminlte2 is a very good resource. (Though the django-adminlte3 site claims to have documentation at a nearly identical site, just for version 3, that site doesn't exist. But to date haven't had issues using the v2 docs to sort through things.)

Where To Go From Here

AdminLTE offers a lot more features than this, as can be seen on their site and in ther live preview. But I'll leave you with one last tidbit. Regarding the possible icons you can make use of, note above the class attributes fa fa-home and fa fa-cog. To help you find the right icon to use and style, use this search page on Font Awesome.