Tutorial Part 7: The Admin Site and Customization

In Part 7, we set up the Djangors Admin site, register our application models (Question, Choice, Group, Permission), configure admin search and filtering using ModelAdminConfig, mount admin routes, create a superuser account, and grant permissions.

Note

All admin code in this part comes directly from examples/polls/src/admin.rs.

1. Setting Up src/admin.rs

In Djangors, the admin site is configured in src/admin.rs using AdminSite.

Create src/admin.rs and register the models:

#![allow(unused)]
fn main() {
use polls::models::{Question, Choice};
use djangors_admin::{AdminSite, ModelAdminConfig};

pub fn admin_site() -> AdminSite {
    let site = AdminSite::new();
    
    // Register application models with default configuration
    site.register::<Question>();
    site.register::<Choice>();
    
    // Register auth models
    site.register::<djangors_auth::Permission>();
    
    // Register Group with custom ModelAdminConfig (enabling search_fields)
    site.register_with::<djangors_auth::Group>(ModelAdminConfig {
        search_fields: Some(&["name"]),
        ..Default::default()
    });
    
    site.register::<djangors_auth::UserGroup>();
    site.register::<djangors_auth::GroupPermission>();
    site.register::<djangors_auth::UserPermission>();
    
    site
}
}

2. Mounting Admin Routes

Mount the admin site onto your main router in src/urls.rs:

#![allow(unused)]
fn main() {
mod views {
    use djangors_core::{DjangorsError, PathParams, Request, Response, StatusCode};
    pub async fn index(_: Request, _: PathParams) -> Result<Response, DjangorsError> { Ok(Response::html(StatusCode::OK, "")) }
    pub async fn detail(_: Request, _: PathParams) -> Result<Response, DjangorsError> { Ok(Response::html(StatusCode::OK, "")) }
    pub async fn results(_: Request, _: PathParams) -> Result<Response, DjangorsError> { Ok(Response::html(StatusCode::OK, "")) }
    pub async fn vote(_: Request, _: PathParams) -> Result<Response, DjangorsError> { Ok(Response::html(StatusCode::OK, "")) }
    pub async fn login_view(_: Request, _: PathParams) -> Result<Response, DjangorsError> { Ok(Response::html(StatusCode::OK, "")) }
    pub async fn logout_view(_: Request, _: PathParams) -> Result<Response, DjangorsError> { Ok(Response::html(StatusCode::OK, "")) }
}
mod admin {
    use djangors_admin::AdminSite;
    pub fn admin_site() -> AdminSite { AdminSite::new() }
}
use djangors_core::Router;

pub fn urls() -> Router {
    djangors_admin::favicon_routes(
        Router::new()
            .get("/", views::index)
            .get("/{question_id:i64}/", views::detail)
            .get("/{question_id:i64}/results/", views::results)
            .post("/{question_id:i64}/vote/", views::vote)
            .post("/accounts/login/", views::login_view)
            .post("/accounts/logout/", views::logout_view)
            .mount("/admin", self::admin::admin_site().urls()),
    )
}
}

3. Creating Superusers & Permissions

Use djangors-cli subcommands to seed system permissions and create an administrator account:

# Create standard view/add/change/delete permissions for registered models
dj createpermissions

# Create an administrative user with full superuser privileges
dj createsuperuser --username admin --email admin@example.com

4. Customizing ModelAdmin with ModelAdminConfig

The ModelAdminConfig struct allows customizing changelists and search functionality:

• search_fields: Specifies text fields for ?q= ILIKE queries (e.g. Some(&["name"])).
• list_display: Controls visible columns on model changelists.
• list_filter: Filters changelist rows by boolean or specified fields.
• date_hierarchy: Groups records by date/time hierarchies.

What’s Real vs. What Django Has That Djangors Doesn’t Yet

Important

Key Architecture Differences from Django:

• Code-Driven Admin: Admin registration uses Rust functions and method calls (site.register::<Question>()) rather than @admin.register Python decorators.
• Type-Safe Model Admin Configuration: Customizations are passed via ModelAdminConfig structs to register_with::<T>().
• Staff Authentication Gating: Access to /admin/ endpoints requires an authenticated user with is_staff = true or is_superuser = true. Unauthenticated requests receive HTTP 401 Unauthorized.

Running and Accessing Admin

1. Start the server:

DATABASE_URL="postgres://postgres:postgres@localhost/djangors_dev" dj run --port 8000

2. Open http://localhost:8000/admin/ in your browser. Log in using your superuser credentials to manage Question and Choice records.