Django Admin Collaborator - Real-time collaborative editing for Django admin

[Brktrlw]

Django Admin Collaborator - Real-time collaboration for Django admin

Hello Django community! 👋

I'm excited to share a package I've created called Django Admin Collaborator that brings real-time collaborative capabilities to the Django admin interface.

What problem does it solve?

If you've ever worked in a team where multiple people need to edit content in the Django admin, you've probably experienced the frustration of overwriting someone else's changes or having to constantly communicate about who's working on what. This package solves those problems with a WebSocket-based collaborative system.

Key features

• Real-time presence indicators - See who else is viewing the same object
• Exclusive editing mode - Prevents conflicts by allowing only one user to edit at a time
• Automatic lock release - If someone leaves their session open, editing privileges are automatically released
• User avatars and status indicators - Visual feedback on who's editing
• Automatic page refresh - Content updates without manual refreshes

Here's a quick look at it in action:

Getting started

The package is available on PyPI and easy to integrate:

pip install django-admin-collaborator

Basic implementation only requires a few steps:

1. Add to INSTALLED_APPS:

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    # ...
    'channels',
    'django_admin_collaborator',
    # ...
]

2. Configure Redis in your settings:

# Configure Redis connection (defaults to localhost:6379/0)
ADMIN_COLLABORATOR_REDIS_URL = env.str("REDIS_URL")

# Or use the same Redis URL you have for Channels if you're already using it
CHANNEL_LAYERS = {
    'default': {
        'BACKEND': 'channels_redis.core.RedisChannelLayer',
        'CONFIG': {
            'hosts': [('localhost', 6379)],
        },
    },
}

3. Set up the ASGI application:

# asgi.py
import os
from django.core.asgi import get_asgi_application
from channels.routing import ProtocolTypeRouter, URLRouter
from channels.auth import AuthMiddlewareStack
from channels.security.websocket import AllowedHostsOriginValidator

os.environ.setdefault('DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE', 'yourproject.settings')

django_asgi_app = get_asgi_application()
from django_admin_collaborator.routing import websocket_urlpatterns

application = ProtocolTypeRouter({
    'http': django_asgi_app,
    'websocket': AllowedHostsOriginValidator(
        AuthMiddlewareStack(
            URLRouter(
                websocket_urlpatterns
            )
        )
    ),
})

4. Enable collaborative editing for your admin classes:

from django.contrib import admin
from django_admin_collaborator.utils import CollaborativeAdminMixin
from myapp.models import MyModel

@admin.register(MyModel)
class MyModelAdmin(CollaborativeAdminMixin, admin.ModelAdmin):
    list_display = ('name', 'description')
    # ... your other admin configurations

5. Run your project using an ASGI server like Daphne or Uvicorn:

daphne yourproject.asgi:application
# OR
uvicorn yourproject.asgi:application --host 0.0.0.0 --reload --reload-include '*.html'

Technical details

The package uses:

• Django Channels for WebSocket communication
• Redis for lock management and message distribution
• Works with Django 3.2+

Full documentation is available at Read the Docs.

Advanced usage options

Applying to multiple admin classes

If you want to apply collaborative editing to existing admin classes, you can use the utility functions:

from django.contrib import admin
from django_admin_collaborator.utils import make_collaborative
from myapp.models import MyModel

# Create your admin class
class MyModelAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    list_display = ('name', 'description')
    # ... your other admin configurations

# Apply collaborative editing
CollaborativeMyModelAdmin = make_collaborative(MyModelAdmin)

# Register with admin
admin.site.register(MyModel, CollaborativeMyModelAdmin)

Creating admin classes dynamically

You can use the factory function to create admin classes dynamically:

from django.contrib import admin
from django_admin_collaborator.utils import collaborative_admin_factory
from myapp.models import MyModel

# Create and register the admin class in one go
admin.site.register(
    MyModel, 
    collaborative_admin_factory(
        MyModel, 
        admin_options={
            'list_display': ('name', 'description'),
            'search_fields': ('name',),
        }
    )
)

Configuration options

You can customize the behavior through settings:

# Configure lock timeout (in seconds) - default is 300 (5 minutes)
ADMIN_COLLABORATOR_LOCK_TIMEOUT = 600

# Configure presence timeout (in seconds) - default is 60
ADMIN_COLLABORATOR_PRESENCE_TIMEOUT = 120

# Configure avatar settings
ADMIN_COLLABORATOR_USE_AVATARS = True
ADMIN_COLLABORATOR_AVATAR_SIZE = 32  # pixels

Deployment considerations

If you're deploying on Heroku, you may need to adjust database connection settings:

if not DEBUG:
    import django_heroku
    django_heroku.settings(locals())
    DATABASES['default']['CONN_MAX_AGE'] = 0

Use cases

This is particularly helpful for:

• Content management teams where multiple editors work on the same content
• Customer support teams handling tickets through the admin interface
• Any shared admin environment where conflicts could occur

Looking for feedback

I'd love to hear from anyone who gives this a try! Specifically:

• How does it integrate with your existing admin customizations?
• Any performance considerations in your environment?
• Feature requests or improvement ideas?

Feel free to:

• Star the GitHub repository
• Open an issue with any questions
• Contribute if you'd like to help improve it

Thanks for checking it out!