Best way to filter ListView with drop down form in Django

Question

I'm trying to filter a ListView based on Users, using a drop down form.

models.py

class Post(models.Model):
    ...
    author = models.ForeignKey('auth.User', verbose_name="Post Author")

views.py

class PostList(ListView):
    model = Post
    context_object_name = 'posts'

    def get_queryset(self):
        result = super(PostList, self).get_queryset()

        author_filter = self.request.GET.get('author')
        if author_filter:
            result = Post.objects.filter(Q(author__icontains=author_filter))
        return result

post_list.html

<form action="" method="get">
          <select name="author" onchange="this.form.submit();">
            <option selected="selected" disabled>Select an author</option>
            {% all_author as authors %}
            {% for author in authors %}
            <option value="{{ author }}">{{ author }}</option>
            {% endfor %}
          </select>
        </form>

I am using a custom template tag to render all_authors and this works fine. When selecting an author, in the urls I can see something is passed (/?author=xxx), but the list is not filtered.

EDIT

Based on andi's suggestion I made it work this way using django filters. But for some reason fields = ['field_name',] in filters.py is not taken into account, so I'm selecting the fields individually in the template.

views.py

class PostList(FilterView):
    model = Post
    filter_class = PostFilter
    context_object_name = 'posts'
    paginate_by = 50
    template_name = 'directory/post_list.html'

filters.py

class PostFilter(django_filters.FilterSet):

    class Meta:
        model = Post
        fields = ['author',]

post_list.html

<form action="" method="get">
            {{ filter.form.author }}
            <input type="submit" />
        </form>

EDIT 2

I've found out why the selected fields were not passed correctly, needed to use in views filterset_class = instead of filter_class =

Answer 1

Ohh, it is really oldschool, error prone and time consuming way of doing the things.

Please give a try to django-filter library. And create working fine filters with minimum amount of effort! This allows creating very robust filtering strategies while maintaining clean code.

https://django-filter.readthedocs.io/en/latest/guide/usage.html#

below fast draft:

the filter:

import django_filters

class PostFilter(django_filters.FilterSet):
    class Meta:
        model = Post
        fields = ['author']

the view:

from django_filters.views import FilterView
from somwhere.in.your.project.filtersets import PostFilter

class PostList(FilterView):
    model = Post
    context_object_name = 'posts'
    filter_class = PostFilter

in template:

{% extends "base.html" %}

{% block content %}
    <form action="" method="get">
        {{ filter.form.as_p }}
        <input type="submit" />
    </form>
    {% for obj in filter.qs %}
        {{ obj.name }} - ${{ obj.price }}<br />
    {% endfor %}
{% endblock %}