How do I change the widget type of the DELETE field in a django formset

Question

I'm using a formset with can_delete=True. I want to change the widget of the DELETE field to a hidden input. I can't seem to find a good way to do this. What I've tried is:

Change the form's widget to HiddenInput and/or add a hidden field in the form definition:

class MyForm(ModelForm):
    DELETE = forms.BooleanField(widget=forms.HiddenInput)

    class Meta:
        model = MyModel
        widgets = {'DELETE' : forms.HiddenInput}

Do the above with a change in the formset

class MyFormSet(BaseModelFormSet):

def add_fields(self, form, index):
    originalDeletion = None
    if DELETION_FIELD_NAME in form.fields:
        originalDeletion = form.fields[DELETION_FIELD_NAME]

    super(MyFormSet, self).add_fields(form,index)

    if originalDeletion is not None:
        form.fields[DELETION_FIELD_NAME] = originalDeletion

If I do these both it does actually change the field to hidden but this seems like a bit of a hack (effectively overwriting the usual add_fields method). How are you supposed to do this?

== EDIT ==

It turns out that using a hidden field is not so good with the form framework anyway. You should definitely use a checkbox and hide it with css. If you want to do adjust the css of the checkbox in Django I still think you have to change the add_fields method as above, which then allows you to change the widget's css.

Answer 1

The shortest code to accomplish what you need is:

class MyFormSet(BaseFormSet):
    def add_fields(self, form, index):
        super(MyFormSet, self).add_fields(form, index)
        form.fields[DELETION_FIELD_NAME].widget = forms.HiddenInput()

It cannot be considered a hack because it's mentioned in the official Django docs:

https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.4/topics/forms/formsets/#adding-additional-fields-to-a-formset

Django sources to read:

• definition of DELETION_FIELD_NAME
• definition of add_fields() method
• the place in which add_field() is called - after a form is constructed, so you cannot do anything in Form._init_()