Change Django ModelChoiceField to show users' full names rather than usernames

Question

I have a form in my Django app (not in admin) that allows staff members to select a user from a dropdown.

forms.ModelChoiceField(queryset = User.objects.filter(is_staff=False), required = False)

The problem is that the dropdown shows users by usernames whereas I'd rather it show their full name from user.get_full_name() and use username only if that is not available. I only really need this change on this page, in other places like admin, I don't care if it uses username.

Is there a way I can do this?

Thanks!

Answer 1

You can override the field with a custom ModelChoiceField and change the label_from_instance function to return get_full_name instead. See the docs for ModelChoiceField: http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.2/ref/forms/fields/#modelchoicefield

Answer 2

You can setup a custom ModelChoiceField that will return whatever label you'd like.

Place something like this within a fields.py or wherever applicable.

class UserModelChoiceField(ModelChoiceField):
    def label_from_instance(self, obj):
         return obj.get_full_name()

Then when creating your form, simply use that field

 UserModelChoiceField(queryset=User.objects.filter(is_staff=False), required = False)

More info can be found here