django-modern-form-utils

django-modern-form-utils is a modernized fork of the deprecated django-form-utils package, updated to support Django 4.x and 5.x, and compatible with Python 3.8+.

This package provides reusable form enhancements and rendering utilities designed for modern Django projects.

Features

1. BetterForm and BetterModelForm: - Organize form fields into fieldsets for improved layout. - Attach row-level attributes (e.g. class, style) to each field.
2. Template Filters for Forms: - label — Custom label rendering. - value_text, selected_values — Display selected choices as text. - optional, is_checkbox, is_multiple, is_select, is_radio — Field-type-aware rendering helpers.
3. ClearableFileField / ClearableImageField: - Show a checkbox to clear file/image fields at form level. - Works out-of-the-box with Django Admin via ClearableFileFieldsAdmin.
4. ImageWidget: - Shows thumbnails for image fields (supports sorl-thumbnail or easy-thumbnails).
5. AutoResizeTextarea Widget: - Automatically resizes <textarea> based on input. - jQuery-based enhancement.

Installation

pip install django-modern-form-utils

Then, add it to your INSTALLED_APPS:

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    ...
    "modern_form_utils",
]

If you want to override the default templates, provide your own versions in: templates/modern_form_utils/better_form.html and form.html.

Usage

BetterForm Example

from modern_form_utils.forms import BetterForm

class MyForm(BetterForm):
    one = forms.CharField()
    two = forms.CharField()
    three = forms.CharField()

    class Meta:
        fieldsets = [
            ("main", {"fields": ["two"], "legend": ""}),
            ("Advanced", {
                "fields": ["three", "one"],
                "description": "Advanced fields",
                "classes": ["advanced", "collapse"]
            }),
        ]
        row_attrs = {
            "one": {"style": "display: none"}
        }

ClearableFileField Example

from modern_form_utils.fields import ClearableFileField

class MyModelForm(forms.ModelForm):
    resume = ClearableFileField()

ImageWidget Example

from modern_form_utils.widgets import ImageWidget

class MyForm(forms.ModelForm):
    avatar = forms.ImageField(widget=ImageWidget())

AutoResizeTextarea Example

from modern_form_utils.widgets import AutoResizeTextarea

class MyForm(forms.Form):
    description = forms.CharField(widget=AutoResizeTextarea())

Template Filters

Load the template filters:

{% load modern_form_utils %}

Then use in templates:

{{ form|render }}
{{ form.fieldname|label:"Custom Label" }}
{{ form.fieldname|value_text }}
{% if form.fieldname|is_checkbox %}...{% endif %}

Admin Integration

To make file fields in Django admin clearable:

from modern_form_utils.admin import ClearableFileFieldsAdmin

class MyAdmin(ClearableFileFieldsAdmin):
    pass

To use ImageWidget in admin:

class MyAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    formfield_overrides = {
        models.ImageField: {"widget": ImageWidget},
    }

Settings

JQUERY_URL

JQUERY_URL = "https://code.jquery.com/jquery-3.6.0.min.js"

If unset, defaults to:

https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.8/jquery.min.js

Contributing

• Fork this repo
• Make sure tests pass via python runtests.py
• Supports Django 3.2, 4.2, 5.0+ on Python 3.8–3.12

Credits

Original author: Carl Meyer (django-form-utils)

This package: Updated and maintained by Muhammad Ziauldin

GitHub: https://github.com/ziauldin123

Organization: https://github.com/Nexgsol

Package: django-modern-form-utils

License

BSD License (same as the original)