Overriding admin css in django

I want to change certain css in admin django like base.css. Is it better to change directly in the django library? How can I override it in the best way?

It depends a lot of what you want to do. Though first of all: do not overwrite it in the Django admin directly. You got two options I think are reasonable:

1. If you want to change the appearance of the admin in general you should override admin templates. This is covered in details here: Overriding admin templates. Sometimes you can just extend the original admin file and then overwrite a block like {% block extrastyle %}{% endblock %} in django/contrib/admin/templates/admin/base.html as an example.
2. If your style is model specific you can add additional styles via the Media meta class in your admin.py. See an example here:

> class MyModelAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin): > class Media: > js = ('js/admin/my_own_admin.js',)
> css = { > 'all': ('css/admin/my_own_admin.css',) > }

• In settings.py, make sure your app is listed before admin in the INSTALLED_APPS.
• Create (your-app)/templates/admin/base_site.html and put the <style> block into the {% block extrahead %}

---

Example:

{% extends "admin/base_site.html" %}
{% block extrahead %}
    <style>
        .field-__str__ {
            font-family: Consolas, monospace;
        }
    </style>
{% endblock %}

This solution will work for the admin site, I think it's the cleanest way because it overrides base_site.html which doesn't change when upgrading django.

Create in your templates directory a folder called admin in it create a file named base_site.html.

Create in your static directory under css a file called admin-extra.css .

Write in it all the custom css you want for your forms like: body{background: #000;}.

Paste this in the base_site.html:

{% extends "admin/base.html" %}
{% load static from staticfiles %} # This might be just {% load static %} in your ENV

{% block title %}{{ title }} | {{ site_title|default:_('Django site admin') }}{% endblock %}

{% block extrastyle %}{{ block.super }}<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="{% static "css/admin-extra.css" %}" />{% endblock %}

{% block branding %}
<h1 id="site-name"><a href="{% url 'admin:index' %}">{{ site_header|default:_('Django administration') }}</a></h1>
{% endblock %}

{% block nav-global %}{% endblock %}

As mentioned in the comments: make sure your app is before the admin app in INSTALLED_APPS, otherwise your template doesn't override django's

That's It! you're done

I just extended admin/base.html to include a reference to my own css file - at the end. The beauty of css is that you don't have to touch existing definitions, just re-define.

In your static directory, create a static/admin/css/base.css file.

Paste in Django's default Admin CSS first, then add your customizations at the bottom.

If you want a global scope and you don't want to think about overriding templates a mixin works really well for this. Put this code wherever you want:

class CSSAdminMixin(object):
    class Media:
        css = {
            'all': ('css/admin.css',),
        }

Then, make a CSS file called admin.css with your overrides, for example:

select[multiple] {
    resize: vertical;
}

Then, in whatever models you want, do:

class MyModelAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin, CSSAdminMixin):

And you'll be all set.

Have admin/css/changelists.css inside a folder in STATICFILES_DIRS, and it will user that changelists.css instead of the default admin one.

The better option is to override HTML

inside your templates create a folder admin and there your can create base.html

{% extends 'admin/base.html' %}

{% block extrahead %}{{ block.super }}
<style>
:root {
  --primary: #9774d5;
  --secondary: #785cab;
  --link-fg: #7c449b;
  --link-selected-fg: #8f5bb2;
}
</style>
{% endblock %}

know more

If the string given is a method of the model, ModelAdmin or a callable, Django will HTML-escape the output by default. To escape user input and allow your own unescaped tags, use format_html().

Here’s a full example model:

from django.contrib import admin
from django.db import models
from django.utils.html import format_html

class Person(models.Model):
    first_name = models.CharField(max_length=50)
    last_name = models.CharField(max_length=50)
    color_code = models.CharField(max_length=6)

    @admin.display
    def colored_name(self):
        return format_html(
            '<span style="color: #{};">{} {}</span>',
            self.color_code,
            self.first_name,
            self.last_name,
        )

class PersonAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    list_display = ('first_name', 'last_name', 'colored_name')

know more