how to set default value for textarea in form in django?

Question

I am making an app, and I need to set the default value of a textarea in a form as a field inside a model.

This is what my form looks like:

class SaveNotes(forms.Form):
    notes = forms.CharField(widget=forms.Textarea(attrs={
        'class' : 'textarea has-fixed-size',
        'style' : 'height: 50%; margin-bottom: 1%',
        'placeholder' : 'might start limiting my spending...',
    }))

and here is the view for the webpage:

def spaceDashboard(request, id):
    template = "spaces/dashboard.html"
    accessDeniedTemplate = "errors/403.html"
    space = get_object_or_404(Space, pk=id)

    recordsFormClass = RecordForm
    bardRequestsFormClass = BardRequests
    saveNotesFormClass = SaveNotes
    
    deleteUrl = "delete/%s" % space.id
    recordsUrl = "%s/records" % space.id
    
    if request.method == "POST":
        recordsForm = recordsFormClass(request.POST)
        bardRequests = bardRequestsFormClass(request.POST)
        saveNotesForm = saveNotesFormClass(request.POST)

        if saveNotesForm.is_valid():
            notes = saveNotesForm.cleaned_data["notes"]

            space["notes"] = notes
            space.save()

        if recordsForm.is_valid():
            data = recordsForm.cleaned_data
            new = Record(amount=data["amount"], memo=data["memo"])
            new.save()
            
            space.records.add(new)
            space.balance = space.calculateBalance()
            print(space.balance)
            messages.info(request, "Record has been added successfully.")
        
        if bardRequests.is_valid():
            data = bardRequests.cleaned_data
            response = bard_requests.askQuestion(data["request"])
            return HttpResponse(response)

    if request.user.is_authenticated:
        if request.user.username == space.owner.username or space.owner == None:
            return render(request, template, context={
                "space" : space,
                "goalPercentage" : (space.calculateBalance()/(space.goal/100)),
                "recordsForm" : recordsFormClass,
                "bardRequestsForm" : bardRequestsFormClass,
                "saveNotesForm" : saveNotesFormClass,
                "recordsCount" : len(space.records.all()),
                "deleteUrl" : deleteUrl,
                "recordsUrl" : recordsUrl,
            })
        else:
            return render(request, accessDeniedTemplate)
    else:
        return redirect("/login")

Is there a way to pass an argument to the form and make that the default value of the textarea? Does anyone know how to do what I am trying to do?

Answer 1

There is two way's pass initial (default value) in form input

------ way-1 in(form) --------

class SaveNotes(forms.Form):
    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
        super(SaveNotes, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)
        self.fields['notes'].initial = 'Default input'
    notes = forms.CharField(widget=forms.Textarea(attrs={
        'class' : 'textarea has-fixed-size',
        'style' : 'height: 50%; margin-bottom: 1%',
        'placeholder' : 'might start limiting my spending...',
    }))

------ way-2 in(view) --------

def DemoView(request):
  form = SaveNotes(initial={'notes':'default value'})
  context = {'form':form}  
  return render(request,'index.html',context)

HTML code

<div class="container p-5">
  <div class="row mx-auto">
    <div class="col-6">
      {{form.notes.label_tag}} <br>
      {{form.notes}}
    </div>
  </div>
</div>

Browser Output

NOTE - if you pass both side, Django template render value of the views first