How to modify choices on Django Admin

Question

I have a model that has a field named "state":

class Foo(models.Model):
    ...
    state = models.IntegerField(choices = STATES)
    ...

For every state, possible choices are a certain subset of all STATES. For example:

if foo.state == STATES.OPEN:     #if foo is open, possible states are CLOSED, CANCELED
    ...
if foo.state == STATES.PENDING:  #if foo is pending, possible states are OPEN,CANCELED
    ...

As a result, when foo.state changes to a new state, its set of possible choices changes also.

How can I implement this functionality on Admin add/change pages?

Answer 1

You need to use a custom ModelForm in the ModelAdmin class for that model. In the custom ModelForm's __init__ method, you can dynamically set the choices for that field:

class FooForm(forms.ModelForm):
    class Meta:
        model = Foo

    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
        super(FooForm, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)
        current_state = self.instance.state
        ...construct available_choices based on current state...
        self.fields['state'].choices = available_choices

You'd use it like this:

class FooAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    form = FooForm