How to display a user's get_full_name() instead of the username in a Django model form?

django, django-forms

Solution

This can be done several ways.

Create a proxy subclass of `User` and override its `__unicode__()` method to return user's full name.

class UserFullName(User):
    class Meta:
        proxy = True

    def __unicode__(self):
        return self.get_full_name()

Now in your model form, use `UserFullName` to retrieve users.

class BookForm(forms.ModelForm):
    author = forms.ModelChoiceField(queryset=UserFullName.objects.all())
    class Meta:
        model = Book

Another way is to dynamically populate choices in form's constructor.

class BookForm(forms.ModelForm):

    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
        super(BookForm, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)
        users = User.objects.all()
        self.fields['author'].choices = [(user.pk, user.get_full_name()) for user in users]

    class Meta:
        model = Book

Perhaps, the most "djangonic" way is demonstrated by lazerscience as an answer to the similar question Django forms: how to dynamically create ModelChoiceField labels. It subclasses `ModelChoiceField` and overrides its `label_from_instance()` method that is intended to provide choice labels.

class UserFullnameChoiceField(forms.ModelChoiceField):
    def label_from_instance(self, obj):
        return smart_unicode(obj.get_full_name())

class BookForm(forms.ModelForm):
    author = UserFullnameChoiceField(queryset=User.objects.all())

    class Meta:
        model = Book

Problem

I have a model that references a `ForeignKey(User)` field. When a user selects an item on his form I would like them to be able to see the `get_full_name()` instead of just the `username`. ``` class Books(models.Model): author = models.ForeignKey(User) ```

Original source

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