is it possible to create a custom admin view without a model behind it

Question

I have an object which I want to use under admin instead of a model which inherits models.Model. If I make it inherit models.Model, this object will create a table in the database which i don't want. I only want this object to stay in memory.

One solution I have come with help from the nice people at stack overflow is I create admin views, register these custom views via a modelAdmin ( admin.site.register() ) under admin.py and use this model-like object as dynamic data storage (in memory).

Since this model like object doesn't inherit from models.Model, admin.site.register() (under admin.py) doesnt accept it and shows a 'type' object is not iterable" error when I try to access it in the browser.

Answer 1

hmmm. Thanks for your help everyone. The solution I have come up ( with your help ofcourse :) is as follows:

I have two custom templates:

   my_model_list.html    my_model_detail.html 

Under views.py:

class MyModel(object):     # ... Access other models     # ... process / normalise data      # ... store data  @staff_member_required def my_model_list_view(request) #show list of all objects     #. . . create objects of MyModel . . .     #. . . call their processing methods . . .     #. . . store in context variable . . .      r = render_to_response('admin/myapp/my_model_list.html', context, RequestContext(request))     return HttpResponse(r)  @staff_member_required def my_model_detail_view(request, row_id) # Shows one row (all values in the object) in detail          #. . . create object of MyModel . . .     #. . . call it's methods . . .     #. . . store in context variable . . .      r = render_to_response('admin/myapp/my_model_detail.html', context, RequestContext(request))     return HttpResponse(r) 

Under the main django urls.py:

urlpatterns = patterns(      '',     (r'^admin/myapp/mymodel/$', my_model_list_view),     (r'^admin/myapp/mymodel/(\d+)/$', my_model_detail_view),     ( r'^admin/', include( admin.site.urls ) ) ) 

Answer 2

You can add your views directly to the AdminSite object, rather than to any particular ModelAdmin subclass which you then register.

The default AdminSite is accessed via django.contrib.admin.site, which is what you call register and autodiscover on. Instead of using this, you could create your own subclass and add your own views to it, and then register your models against that rather than the default one.