[Admin] Dynamic columns in list view

[VaZark]

Code of Conduct

• I agree to follow Django's Code of Conduct

Feature Description

The list view should be configurable to have different columns based on a predefined list (all by default).

Users should be able to save this configuration and reuse it later.

@admin.register(CustomUser)
class UserAdmin(UserAdmin):
    model = CustomUser
    list_display = [
        "email",
        "name",
        "is_staff",
        "is_active",
       "last_login",
       "date_joined"
 ]
    default_list_display = [
        "email",
        "is_staff",
        "is_active",
    ]
    list_filter = [
        "is_staff",
        "is_active",
    ]

Problem

There are multiple reasons to look up a table at any given moment. Being able to choose the fields flexibly can ensure we load precisely the values we need on a need-only basis and help us avoid creating a separate proxy table just to have a different another list view in the admin. (Proxy are great if the used extensively with perms or a different detail view tho)

Request or proposal

request

Additional Details

No response

Implementation Suggestions

No response

[github-actions]

Thank you VaZark for sharing your idea! We have a lot of them so please be patient. You can see the current queue here.

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Reaction Guide

• 👍 This is something I would use
• 👎 This is something that would cause problems for me or Django
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• 🎉 This is an easy win

[nanuxbe]

If I understand well, what this request is about is something that already exists in Django: get_list_display

Assuming my understanding of the request is correct, I'll close this as "done", feel free to re-open if this is not the case

[VaZark]

Kinda. Feel free to correct me if I'm wring but get_list_display doesn't have a visual component where the user can dynamically change the list options directly on the admin.

The request is for a display list that the user can modify at runtime. The closest example would be something like Bubble's Database View (Ref page)

The whitelisted options will be defined by list_display or something similar, and the user should be able to modify the columns they wish to see (temporarily like a filter)

[rixx]

I think the complexity of adding this to the default admin is not worth it: Settling on a user interface that allows users to show and hide columns, without breaking accessibility or backwards compatibility feels like a lot for comparatively little gain, especially with the backend capability already existing in the form of get_list_display.

Implementing this as either a URL-based or cookie-based feature with get_list_display and injecting the column selection into the list admin seems very doable in a package (if I understand the proposal correctly). This has the advantage of being independent of Django release cycles (the admin templates are very stable, after all), allowing space to experiment with the UI, and also not having to immediately comply with full accessibility standards in the first go.

(FWIW I tend to see this feature request when a project hits the stage where the admin isn’t the best tool for the job anymore, and breaking the list page out into a proper Django view is the correct way forward. Once you hit that stage, adding this feature either manually or via django-table2 is pretty easy – NetBox, for example, has a generic implementation of dynamic columns for all its list views.)