Bind preferences to arbitrary models

By default, dynamic-preferences come with two kinds of preferences:

• Global preferences, which are not tied to any particular model instance

• User preferences, which apply to a specific user

While this can be enough, your project may require additional preferences. For example, you may want to bind preferences to a specific Site instance. Don’t panic, dynamic-preferences got you covered.

In order to achieve this, you’ll need to follow this process:

1. Create a preference model with a ForeignKey to Site

2. Create a registry to store available preferences for sites

The following guide assumes you want to bind preferences to the django.contrib.sites.Site model.

Create a preference model

You’ll need to subclass PerInstancePreferenceModel model, and add a ForeignKey field pointing to the target model:

# yourapp/models.py
from django.contrib.sites.models import Site
from dynamic_preferences.models import PerInstancePreferenceModel

class SitePreferenceModel(PerInstancePreferenceModel):

    # note: you *have* to use the `instance` field
    instance = models.ForeignKey(Site)

    class Meta:
        # Specifying the app_label here is mandatory for backward
        # compatibility reasons, see #96
        app_label = 'yourapp'

Now, you can create a migration for your newly created model with python manage.py makemigrations, apply it with python manage.py migrate.

Create a registry to collect your model preferences

Now, you have to create a registry to collect preferences belonging to the Site model:

# yourapp/registries.py
from dynamic_preferences.registries import PerInstancePreferenceRegistry

class SitePreferenceRegistry(PerInstancePreferenceRegistry):
    pass

site_preferences_registry = SitePreferenceRegistry()

Then, you simply have to connect your SitePreferenceModel to your registry. You should do that in an apps.py file, as follows:

# yourapp/apps.py
from django.apps import AppConfig
from django.conf import settings

from dynamic_preferences.registries import preference_models
from .registries import site_preferences_registry

class YourAppConfig(AppConfig):
    name = 'your_app'

    def ready(self):
        SitePreferenceModel = self.get_model('SitePreferenceModel')

        preference_models.register(SitePreferenceModel, site_preferences_registry)

Here, we use django’s built-in AppConfig, which is a convenient place to put this kind of logic.

To ensure this config is actually used by django, you’ll also have to edit your app __init__.py:

# yourapp/__init__.py
default_app_config = 'yourapp.apps.YourAppConfig'

Warning

Ensure your app is listed before dynamic_preferences in settings.INSTALLED_APPS, otherwise, preferences will be collected before your registry is actually registered, and it will end up empty.

Start creating preferences

After this setup, you’re good to go, and can start registering your preferences for the Site model in the same way you would do with the User model. You’ll simply need to use your registry instead of the user_preferences_registry:

# yourapp/dynamic_preferences_registry.py
from dynamic_preferences.types import BooleanPreference, StringPreference
from dynamic_preferences.preferences import Section
from yourapp.registries import site_preferences_registry

access = Section('access')

@site_preferences_registry.register
class IsPublic(BooleanPreference):
    section = access
    name = 'is_public'
    default = False

Preferences will be available on your Site instances using the preferences attribute, as described in quickstart:

# somewhere in a view
from django.contrib.sites.models import Site

my_site = Site.objects.first()
if my_site.preferences['access__is_public']:
    print('This site is public')

Provide preferences in a Form

Optionally, you can provide forms with your custom preferences for the Site model. Start by creating forms:

# yourapp/forms.py
from dynamic_preferences.forms import preference_form_builder, PreferenceForm, SinglePerInstancePreferenceForm

class SiteSinglePreferenceForm(SinglePerInstancePreferenceForm):

    class Meta:
        model = SitePreferenceModel
        fields = SinglePerInstancePreferenceForm.Meta.fields


def site_preference_form_builder(instance, preferences=[], **kwargs):
    """
    A shortcut :py:func:`preference_form_builder(SitePreferenceForm, preferences, **kwargs)`
    :param site: a :py:class:`Site` instance
    """
    return preference_form_builder(
        SitePreferenceForm,
        preferences,
        instance=instance,
        **kwargs)


class SitePreferenceForm(PreferenceForm):
    registry = site_preferences_registry

The view for your preferences should extend from PreferenceFormView. For simplicity, this example just retrieves the first Site instance in the database. You will likely want to change this functionality based on the actual model being used and how it is associated to the current request. This example lists all Site Preferences, but you can also limit the preferences to a section as described in quickstart:

# yourapp/views.py
from django.contrib.sites.models import Site
from django.urls import reverse_lazy
from dynamic_preferences.views import PreferenceFormView


class SitePreferencesBuilder(PreferenceFormView):
    instance = Site.objects.first()

    template_name = 'yourapp/form.html'
    form_class = site_preference_form_builder(instance=instance)
    success_url = reverse_lazy("yourapp:site_preferences")

Include the new view in your app’s urls.py:

# yourapp/urls.py
from django.urls import path
from yourapp.views import SitePreferencesBuilder

app_name = "yoursite"

urlpatterns = [
    path('site-preferences', SitePreferencesBuilder.as_view(), name='site_preferences'),
]

And create the template for the form:

# yourapp/templates/form.html
{% extends "base.html" %}

{% block content %}

    <form action="." method="POST">

        {% csrf_token %}
        <table>
            {{ form.as_table }}
        </table>
        <button type="submit">SUBMIT</button>

    </form>

{% endblock content %}