Excluding a form field, yet adding it back in with clean()

Question

In the django admin, I have an inline that I want to have the viewing user filled in automatically. During the clean function, it fills in the created_by field with request.user. The problem is that since the created_by field is excluded by the form, the value that gets inserted into cleaned_fields gets ignored apparently. How can I do this? I want the widget t not be displayed at all.

class NoteInline(admin.TabularInline):
    model = Note
    extra = 1
    can_delete = False

    def get_formset(self, request, obj=None, **kwargs):
        """
        Generate a form with the viewing CSA filled in automatically
        """

        class NoteForm(forms.ModelForm):

            def clean(self):
                self.cleaned_data['created_by'] = request.user
                return self.cleaned_data

            class Meta:
                exclude = ('created_by', )
                model = Note
                widgets = {'note': forms.TextInput(attrs={'style': "width:80%"})}

        return forms.models.inlineformset_factory(UserProfile, Note,
                                                  extra=self.extra,
                                                  form=NoteForm,
                                                  can_delete=self.can_delete)

Answer 1

ORIGINAL SUGGESTION:

Why not just leave the field in place, rather than excluding it and then make it a hiddeninput?

class NoteForm(forms.ModelForm):

def __init__(*args, **kwargs):
   super(NoteForm, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)

   self.fields['created_by'].widget = forms.widgets.HiddenInput()


#rest of your form code follows, except you don't exclude 'created_by' any more    

SUGGESTION #2 (because the hidden field still appears in the column header in the inline):

Don't set self.cleaned_data['created_by'] in the clean() method at all. Instead, override NoteForm.save() and set it there.

(Either pass in the request to save(), if you can, or cache it in the init by adding it to self, or use it as a class-level variable as you appear to do already.)