[Django]-How to override and extend basic Django admin templates?

As for Django 1.8 being the current release, there is no need to symlink, copy the admin/templates to your project folder, or install middlewares as suggested by the answers above. Here is what to do:

1. create the following tree structure(recommended by the official documentation)

   your_project
        |-- your_project/
        |-- myapp/
        |-- templates/
             |-- admin/
                 |-- myapp/
                     |-- change_form.html  <- do not misspell this
   

Note: The location of this file is not important. You can put it inside your app and it will still work. As long as its location can be discovered by django. What’s more important is the name of the HTML file has to be the same as the original HTML file name provided by django.

2. Add this template path to your settings.py:

   TEMPLATES = [
       {
           'BACKEND': 'django.template.backends.django.DjangoTemplates',
           'DIRS': [os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'templates')], # <- add this line
           'APP_DIRS': True,
           'OPTIONS': {
               'context_processors': [
                   'django.template.context_processors.debug',
                   'django.template.context_processors.request',
                   'django.contrib.auth.context_processors.auth',
                   'django.contrib.messages.context_processors.messages',
               ],
           },
       },
   ]
   

3. Identify the name and block you want to override. This is done by looking into django’s admin/templates directory. I am using virtualenv, so for me, the path is here:

   ~/.virtualenvs/edge/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/contrib/admin/templates/admin
   

In this example, I want to modify the add new user form. The template responsiblve for this view is change_form.html. Open up the change_form.html and find the {% block %} that you want to extend.

4. In your change_form.html, write somethings like this:

   {% extends "admin/change_form.html" %}
   {% block field_sets %}
        {# your modification here #}
   {% endblock %}
   

5. Load up your page and you should see the changes

if you need to overwrite the admin/index.html, you can set the index_template parameter of the AdminSite.

e.g.

# urls.py
...
from django.contrib import admin

admin.site.index_template = 'admin/my_custom_index.html'
admin.autodiscover()

and place your template in <appname>/templates/admin/my_custom_index.html

With django 1.5 (at least) you can define the template you want to use for a particular modeladmin

see https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.5/ref/contrib/admin/#custom-template-options

You can do something like

class Myadmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    change_form_template = 'change_form.htm'

With change_form.html being a simple html template extending admin/change_form.html (or not if you want to do it from scratch)

I couldn’t find a single answer or a section in the official Django docs that had all the information I needed to override/extend the default admin templates, so I’m writing this answer as a complete guide, hoping that it would be helpful for others in the future.

Assuming the standard Django project structure:

mysite-container/         # project container directory
    manage.py
    mysite/               # project package
        __init__.py
        admin.py
        apps.py
        settings.py
        urls.py
        wsgi.py
    app1/
    app2/
    ...
    static/
    templates/

Here’s what you need to do:

1. In mysite/admin.py, create a sub-class of AdminSite:

   from django.contrib.admin import AdminSite
   
   
   class CustomAdminSite(AdminSite):
       # set values for `site_header`, `site_title`, `index_title` etc.
       site_header = 'Custom Admin Site'
       ...
   
       # extend / override admin views, such as `index()`
       def index(self, request, extra_context=None):
           extra_context = extra_context or {}
   
           # do whatever you want to do and save the values in `extra_context`
           extra_context['world'] = 'Earth'
   
           return super(CustomAdminSite, self).index(request, extra_context)
   
   
   custom_admin_site = CustomAdminSite()
   

   Make sure to import custom_admin_site in the admin.py of your apps and register your models on it to display them on your customized admin site (if you want to).

2. In mysite/apps.py, create a sub-class of AdminConfig and set default_site to admin.CustomAdminSite from the previous step:

   from django.contrib.admin.apps import AdminConfig
   
   
   class CustomAdminConfig(AdminConfig):
       default_site = 'admin.CustomAdminSite'
   

3. In mysite/settings.py, replace django.admin.site in INSTALLED_APPS with apps.CustomAdminConfig (your custom admin app config from the previous step).

4. In mysite/urls.py, replace admin.site.urls from the admin URL to custom_admin_site.urls

   from .admin import custom_admin_site
   
   
   urlpatterns = [
       ...
       path('admin/', custom_admin_site.urls),
       # for Django 1.x versions: url(r'^admin/', include(custom_admin_site.urls)),
       ...
   ]
   

5. Create the template you want to modify in your templates directory, maintaining the default Django admin templates directory structure as specified in the docs. For example, if you were modifying admin/index.html, create the file templates/admin/index.html.

   All of the existing templates can be modified this way, and their names and structures can be found in Django’s source code.

6. Now you can either override the template by writing it from scratch or extend it and then override/extend specific blocks.

   For example, if you wanted to keep everything as-is but wanted to override the content block (which on the index page lists the apps and their models that you registered), add the following to templates/admin/index.html:

   {% extends 'admin/index.html' %}
   
   {% block content %}
     <h1>
       Hello, {{ world }}!
     </h1>
   {% endblock %}
   

   To preserve the original contents of a block, add {{ block.super }} wherever you want the original contents to be displayed:

   {% extends 'admin/index.html' %}
   
   {% block content %}
     <h1>
       Hello, {{ world }}!
     </h1>
     {{ block.super }}
   {% endblock %}
   

   You can also add custom styles and scripts by modifying the extrastyle and extrahead blocks.

Chengs’s answer is correct, howewer according to the admin docs not every admin template can be overwritten this way:
https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.9/ref/contrib/admin/#overriding-admin-templates

Templates which may be overridden per app or model

Not every template in contrib/admin/templates/admin may be overridden
per app or per model. The following can:

app_index.html
change_form.html
change_list.html
delete_confirmation.html
object_history.html

For those templates that cannot be overridden in this way, you may
still override them for your entire project. Just place the new
version in your templates/admin directory. This is particularly useful
to create custom 404 and 500 pages

I had to overwrite the login.html of the admin and therefore had to put the overwritten template in this folder structure:

your_project
 |-- your_project/
 |-- myapp/
 |-- templates/
      |-- admin/
          |-- login.html  <- do not misspell this

(without the myapp subfolder in the admin)
I do not have enough repution for commenting on Cheng’s post this is why I had to write this as new answer.

The best way to do it is to put the Django admin templates inside your project. So your templates would be in templates/admin while the stock Django admin templates would be in say template/django_admin. Then, you can do something like the following:

templates/admin/change_form.html

{% extends 'django_admin/change_form.html' %}

Your stuff here

If you’re worried about keeping the stock templates up to date, you can include them with svn externals or similar.

for app index add this line to somewhere common py file like url.py

admin.site.index_template = 'admin/custom_index.html'

for app module index : add this line to admin.py

admin.AdminSite.app_index_template = "servers/servers-home.html"

for change list : add this line to admin class:

change_list_template = "servers/servers_changelist.html"

for app module form template : add this line to your admin class

change_form_template = "servers/server_changeform.html"

etc. and find other in same admin’s module classes

You can override django admin templates in several ways.

For example, there is django-project as shown below:

django-project
 |-core
 |  └-settings.py
 |-app1
 |  |-models.py
 |  └-admin.py
 |-app2
 └-templates

Then, BASE_DIR / 'templates' is set to DIRS in TEMPLATES in settings.py so that templates folder is recognized as shown below:

# "core/settings.py"

TEMPLATES = [
    {
        'BACKEND': 'django.template.backends.django.DjangoTemplates',
        'DIRS': [
            BASE_DIR / 'templates', # Here
        ],
        'APP_DIRS': True,
        'OPTIONS': {
            'context_processors': [
                'django.template.context_processors.debug',
                'django.template.context_processors.request',
                'django.contrib.auth.context_processors.auth',
                'django.contrib.messages.context_processors.messages',
            ],
        },
    },
]

And, there are Food and Drink models in app1/models.py as shown below:

# "app1/models.py"

class Food(models.Model):
    name = models.CharField(max_length=20)

class Drink(models.Model):
    name = models.CharField(max_length=20)

And, there are Food and Drink admins in app1/admin.py as shown below:

# "app1/admin.py"

@admin.register(Food)
class FoodAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    pass

@admin.register(Drink)
class DrinkAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    pass

Now, you can override one of the django admin templates change_form.html in templates/admin/, templates/admin/app1/ and templates/admin/app1/food/ as shown below. *You can copy django admin templates from django/contrib/admin/templates/admin/ in your virtual environment and some django admin templates cannot be overridden in templates/admin/app1/ or templates/admin/app1/food/ but these django admin templates can be overridden all in templates/admin/, templates/admin/app1/ and templates/admin/app1/food/ and you can see my answer explaining which django admin templates can be overridden in which directories.

change_form.html in templates/admin/ below can automatically apply to all admins in all apps. *The lowercase folder name admin works properly:

django-project
 |-core
 |  └-settings.py
 |-app1
 |  |-models.py
 |  └-admin.py
 |-app2
 └-templates
    └-admin
       └-change_form.html # Here

change_form.html in templates/admin/app1/ below can automatically apply to all admins in app1. *The lowercase folder name app1 works properly:

django-project
 |-core
 |  └-settings.py
 |-app1
 |  |-models.py
 |  └-admin.py
 |-app2
 └-templates
    └-admin
       |-app1
       |  └-change_form.html # Here
       └-app2

change_form.html in templates/admin/app1/food/ below can automatically apply to food admin in app1. *The lowercase folder name food works properly:

django-project
 |-core
 |  └-settings.py
 |-app1
 |  |-models.py
 |  └-admin.py
 |-app2
 └-templates
    └-admin
       |-app1
       |  |-food
       |  |  └-change_form.html # Here
       |  └-drink
       └-app2

And now, you can rename change_form.html to custom_change_form.html but custom_change_form.html in any folders cannot automatically apply to any admins in any apps. So, you need to manually apply custom_change_form.html to any admins in any apps which you want to apply custom_change_form.html to.

For custom_change_form.html in templates/admin/ below:

django-project
 |-core
 |  └-settings.py
 |-app1
 |  |-models.py
 |  └-admin.py
 |-app2
 └-templates
    └-admin
       └-custom_change_form.html # Here

Set admin/custom_change_form.html to change_form_template in Food and Drink admins as shown below. *You can find more custom template options:

# "app1/admin.py"

@admin.register(Food)
class FoodAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    change_form_template = 'admin/custom_change_form.html'

@admin.register(Drink)
class DrinkAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    change_form_template = 'admin/custom_change_form.html'

For custom_change_form.html in templates/admin/app1/ below:

django-project
 |-core
 |  └-settings.py
 |-app1
 |  |-models.py
 |  └-admin.py
 |-app2
 └-templates
    └-admin
       |-app1
       |  └-custom_change_form.html # Here
       └-app2

Set admin/app1/custom_change_form.html to change_form_template in Food and Drink admins as shown below:

# "app1/admin.py"

@admin.register(Food)
class FoodAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    change_form_template = 'admin/app1/custom_change_form.html'

@admin.register(Drink)
class DrinkAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    change_form_template = 'admin/app1/custom_change_form.html'

For custom_change_form.html in templates/admin/app1/food below:

django-project
 |-core
 |  └-settings.py
 |-app1
 |  |-models.py
 |  └-admin.py
 |-app2
 └-templates
    └-admin
       |-app1
       |  |-food
       |  |  └-custom_change_form.html # Here
       |  └-drink
       └-app2

Set admin/app1/food/custom_change_form.html to change_form_template in Food and Drink admins as shown below:

# "app1/admin.py"

@admin.register(Food)
class FoodAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    change_form_template = 'admin/app1/food/custom_change_form.html'

@admin.register(Drink)
class DrinkAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    change_form_template = 'admin/app1/food/custom_change_form.html'

I agree with Chris Pratt. But I think it’s better to create the symlink to original Django folder where the admin templates place in:

ln -s /usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/django/contrib/admin/templates/admin/ templates/django_admin

and as you can see it depends on python version and the folder where the Django installed. So in future or on a production server you might need to change the path.

This site had a simple solution that worked with my Django 1.7 configuration.

FIRST: Make a symlink named admin_src in your project’s template/ directory to your installed Django templates. For me on Dreamhost using a virtualenv, my “source” Django admin templates were in:

~/virtualenvs/mydomain/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/contrib/admin/templates/admin

SECOND: Create an admin directory in templates/

So my project’s template/ directory now looked like this:

/templates/
   admin
   admin_src -> [to django source]
   base.html
   index.html
   sitemap.xml
   etc...

THIRD: In your new template/admin/ directory create a base.html file with this content:

{% extends "admin_src/base.html" %}

{% block extrahead %}
<link rel='shortcut icon' href='{{ STATIC_URL }}img/favicon-admin.ico' />
{% endblock %}

FOURTH: Add your admin favicon-admin.ico into your static root img folder.

Done. Easy.

You can use django-overextends, which provides circular template inheritance for Django.

It comes from the Mezzanine CMS, from where Stephen extracted it into a standalone Django extension.

More infos you find in “Overriding vs Extending Templates” (http:/mezzanine.jupo.org/docs/content-architecture.html#overriding-vs-extending-templates) inside the Mezzanine docs.

For deeper insides look at Stephens Blog “Circular Template Inheritance for Django” (http:/blog.jupo.org/2012/05/17/circular-template-inheritance-for-django).

And in Google Groups the discussion (https:/groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/mezzanine-users/sUydcf_IZkQ) which started the development of this feature.

Note:

I don’t have the reputation to add more than 2 links. But I think the links provide interesting background information. So I just left out a slash after “http(s):”. Maybe someone with better reputation can repair the links and remove this note.