Dynamically adding a form to a Django formset
I want to dynamically add new forms to a Django formset, so that when the user clicks an "add" button it runs JavaScript that adds a new form (which is part of the formset) to the page.
This is how I do it, using jQuery:
My template:
<h3>My Services</h3>
{{ serviceFormset.management_form }}
{% for form in serviceFormset.forms %}
<div class='table'>
<table class='no_error'>
{{ form.as_table }}
</table>
</div>
{% endfor %}
<input type="button" value="Add More" id="add_more">
<script>
$('#add_more').click(function() {
cloneMore('div.table:last', 'service');
});
</script>
In a javascript file:
function cloneMore(selector, type) {
var newElement = $(selector).clone(true);
var total = $('#id_' + type + '-TOTAL_FORMS').val();
newElement.find(':input').each(function() {
var name = $(this).attr('name').replace('-' + (total-1) + '-','-' + total + '-');
var id = 'id_' + name;
$(this).attr({'name': name, 'id': id}).val('').removeAttr('checked');
});
newElement.find('label').each(function() {
var newFor = $(this).attr('for').replace('-' + (total-1) + '-','-' + total + '-');
$(this).attr('for', newFor);
});
total++;
$('#id_' + type + '-TOTAL_FORMS').val(total);
$(selector).after(newElement);
}
What it does:
cloneMore
accepts selector
as the first argument, and the type
of formset as the 2nd one. What the selector
should do is pass it what it should duplicate. In this case, I pass it div.table:last
so that jQuery looks for the last table with a class of table
. The :last
part of it is important because the selector
is also used to determine what the new form will be inserted after. More than likely you'd want it at the end of the rest of the forms. The type
argument is so that we can update the management_form
field, notably TOTAL_FORMS
, as well as the actual form fields. If you have a formset full of, say, Client
models, the management fields will have IDs of id_clients-TOTAL_FORMS
and id_clients-INITIAL_FORMS
, while the form fields will be in a format of id_clients-N-fieldname
with N
being the form number, starting with 0
. So with the type
argument the cloneMore
function looks at how many forms there currently are, and goes through every input and label inside the new form replacing all the field names/ids from something like id_clients-(N)-name
to id_clients-(N+1)-name
and so on. After it is finished, it updates the TOTAL_FORMS
field to reflect the new form and adds it to the end of the set.
This function is particularly helpful to me because the way it is setup it allows me to use it throughout the app when I want to provide more forms in a formset, and doesn't make me need to have a hidden "template" form to duplicate as long as I pass it the formset name and the format in which the forms are laid out. Hope it helps.
Simplified version of Paolo's answer using empty_form
as a template.
<h3>My Services</h3>
{{ serviceFormset.management_form }}
<div id="form_set">
{% for form in serviceFormset.forms %}
<table class='no_error'>
{{ form.as_table }}
</table>
{% endfor %}
</div>
<input type="button" value="Add More" id="add_more">
<div id="empty_form" style="display:none">
<table class='no_error'>
{{ serviceFormset.empty_form.as_table }}
</table>
</div>
<script>
$('#add_more').click(function() {
var form_idx = $('#id_form-TOTAL_FORMS').val();
$('#form_set').append($('#empty_form').html().replace(/__prefix__/g, form_idx));
$('#id_form-TOTAL_FORMS').val(parseInt(form_idx) + 1);
});
</script>