========================================

The Django admin documentation generator

========================================

.. module:: django.contrib.admindocs

    :synopsis: Django's admin documentation generator.

.. currentmodule:: django.contrib.admindocs

Django's :mod:`~django.contrib.admindocs` app pulls documentation from the

docstrings of models, views, template tags, and template filters for any app in

:setting:`INSTALLED_APPS` and makes that documentation available from the

:mod:`Django admin <django.contrib.admin>`.

Overview

========

To activate the :mod:`~django.contrib.admindocs`, you will need to do

the following:

* Add :mod:`django.contrib.admindocs` to your :setting:`INSTALLED_APPS`.

* Add ``path('admin/doc/', include('django.contrib.admindocs.urls'))`` to

  your ``urlpatterns``. Make sure it's included *before* the

  ``'admin/'`` entry, so that requests to ``/admin/doc/`` don't get

  handled by the latter entry.

* Install the docutils Python module (https://docutils.sourceforge.io/).

* **Optional:** Using the admindocs bookmarklets requires

  ``django.contrib.admindocs.middleware.XViewMiddleware`` to be installed.

Once those steps are complete, you can start browsing the documentation by

going to your admin interface and clicking the "Documentation" link in the

upper right of the page.

Documentation helpers

=====================

The following special markup can be used in your docstrings to easily create

hyperlinks to other components:

=================   =======================

Django Component    reStructuredText roles

=================   =======================

Models              ``:model:`app_label.ModelName```

Views               ``:view:`app_label.view_name```

Template tags       ``:tag:`tagname```

Template filters    ``:filter:`filtername```

Templates           ``:template:`path/to/template.html```

=================   =======================

Model reference

===============

The **models** section of the ``admindocs`` page describes each model in the

system along with all the fields, properties, and methods available on it.

Relationships to other models appear as hyperlinks. Descriptions are pulled

from ``help_text`` attributes on fields or from docstrings on model methods.

.. versionchanged:: 4.0

    Older versions don't display model cached properties.

A model with useful documentation might look like this::

    class BlogEntry(models.Model):

        """

        Stores a single blog entry, related to :model:`blog.Blog` and

        :model:`auth.User`.

        """

        slug = models.SlugField(help_text="A short label, generally used in URLs.")

        author = models.ForeignKey(

            User,

            models.SET_NULL,

            blank=True, null=True,

        )

        blog = models.ForeignKey(Blog, models.CASCADE)

        ...

        def publish(self):

            """Makes the blog entry live on the site."""

            ...

View reference

==============

Each URL in your site has a separate entry in the ``admindocs`` page, and

clicking on a given URL will show you the corresponding view. Helpful things

you can document in your view function docstrings include:

* A short description of what the view does.

* The **context**, or a list of variables available in the view's template.

* The name of the template or templates that are used for that view.

For example::

    from django.shortcuts import render

    from myapp.models import MyModel

    def my_view(request, slug):

        """

        Display an individual :model:`myapp.MyModel`.

        **Context**

        ``mymodel``

            An instance of :model:`myapp.MyModel`.

        **Template:**

        :template:`myapp/my_template.html`

        """

        context = {'mymodel': MyModel.objects.get(slug=slug)}

        return render(request, 'myapp/my_template.html', context)

Template tags and filters reference

===================================

The **tags** and **filters** ``admindocs`` sections describe all the tags and

filters that come with Django (in fact, the :ref:`built-in tag reference

<ref-templates-builtins-tags>` and :ref:`built-in filter reference

<ref-templates-builtins-filters>` documentation come directly from those

pages). Any tags or filters that you create or are added by a third-party app

will show up in these sections as well.

Template reference

==================

While ``admindocs`` does not include a place to document templates by

themselves, if you use the ``:template:`path/to/template.html``` syntax in a

docstring the resulting page will verify the path of that template with

Django's :ref:`template loaders <template-loaders>`. This can be a handy way to

check if the specified template exists and to show where on the filesystem that

template is stored.

.. _admindocs-bookmarklets:

Included Bookmarklets

=====================

One bookmarklet is available from the ``admindocs`` page:

Documentation for this page

    Jumps you from any page to the documentation for the view that generates

    that page.

Using this bookmarklet requires that ``XViewMiddleware`` is installed and that

you are logged into the :mod:`Django admin <django.contrib.admin>` as a

:class:`~django.contrib.auth.models.User` with

:attr:`~django.contrib.auth.models.User.is_staff` set to ``True``.