wagtail/docs/advanced_topics/customization/page_editing_interface.md

Customizing the editing interface

(customizing_the_tabbed_interface)=

Customizing the tabbed interface

As standard, Wagtail organizes panels for pages into two tabs: 'Content' and 'Promote'. For snippets, Wagtail puts all panels into one page. Depending on the requirements of your site, you may wish to customize this for specific page types or snippets - for example, adding an additional tab for sidebar content. This can be done by specifying an edit_handler attribute on the page or snippet model. For example:

from wagtail.admin.panels import TabbedInterface, TitleFieldPanel, ObjectList

class BlogPage(Page):
    # field definitions omitted

    content_panels = [
        TitleFieldPanel('title', classname="title"),
        FieldPanel('date'),
        FieldPanel('body'),
    ]
    sidebar_content_panels = [
        FieldPanel('advert'),
        InlinePanel('related_links', heading="Related links", label="Related link"),
    ]

    edit_handler = TabbedInterface([
        ObjectList(content_panels, heading='Content'),
        ObjectList(sidebar_content_panels, heading='Sidebar content'),
        ObjectList(Page.promote_panels, heading='Promote'),
        ObjectList(Page.settings_panels, heading='Settings'), # The default settings are now displayed in the sidebar but need to be in the `TabbedInterface`.
    ])

Permissions can be set using permission on the ObjectList to restrict entire groups of panels to specific users.

from wagtail.admin.panels import TabbedInterface, TitleFieldPanel, ObjectList

class FundingPage(Page):
    # field definitions omitted

    shared_panels = [
        TitleFieldPanel('title', classname="title"),
        FieldPanel('date'),
        FieldPanel('body'),
    ]
    private_panels = [
        FieldPanel('approval'),
    ]

    edit_handler = TabbedInterface([
        ObjectList(shared_panels, heading='Details'),
        ObjectList(private_panels, heading='Admin only', permission="superuser"),
        ObjectList(Page.promote_panels, heading='Promote'),
        ObjectList(Page.settings_panels, heading='Settings'), # The default settings are now displayed in the sidebar but need to be in the `TabbedInterface`.
    ])

For more details on how to work with Panel and PanelGroup classes, see [](forms_panels_overview).

(rich_text_field)=

Rich Text (HTML)

Wagtail provides a general-purpose WYSIWYG editor for creating rich text content (HTML) and embedding media such as images, video, and documents. To include this in your models, use the RichTextField function when defining a model field:

from wagtail.fields import RichTextField
from wagtail.admin.panels import FieldPanel


class BookPage(Page):
    body = RichTextField()

    content_panels = Page.content_panels + [
        FieldPanel('body'),
    ]

RichTextField inherits from Django's basic TextField field, so you can pass any field parameters into RichTextField as if using a normal Django field. Its max_length will ignore any rich text formatting. This field does not need a special panel and can be defined with FieldPanel.

However, template output from RichTextField is special and needs to be filtered in order to preserve embedded content. See [](rich_text_filter).

(rich_text_features)=

Limiting features in a rich text field

By default, the rich text editor provides users with a wide variety of options for text formatting and inserting embedded content such as images. However, we may wish to restrict a rich text field to a more limited set of features - for example:

• The field might be intended for a short text snippet, such as a summary to be pulled out on index pages, where embedded images or videos would be inappropriate;
• When page content is defined using StreamField, elements such as headings, images, and videos are usually given their own block types, alongside a rich text block type used for ordinary paragraph text; in this case, allowing headings and images to also exist within the rich text content is redundant (and liable to result in inconsistent designs).

This can be achieved by passing a features keyword argument to RichTextField, with a list of identifiers for the features you wish to allow:

body = RichTextField(features=['h2', 'h3', 'bold', 'italic', 'link'])

The feature identifiers provided on a default Wagtail installation are as follows:

• h2, h3, h4 - heading elements
• bold, italic - bold / italic text
• ol, ul - ordered / unordered lists
• hr - horizontal rules
• link - page, external and email links
• document-link - links to documents
• image - embedded images
• embed - embedded media (see [](embedded_content))

We have a few additional feature identifiers as well. They are not enabled by default, but you can use them in your list of identifiers. These are as follows:

• h1, h5, h6 - heading elements
• code - inline code
• superscript, subscript, strikethrough - text formatting
• blockquote - blockquote

The process for creating new features is described in the following pages:

• [](../../extending/rich_text_internals)
• [](../../extending/extending_draftail)

You can also provide a setting for naming a group of rich text features. See WAGTAILADMIN_RICH_TEXT_EDITORS.

(rich_text_image_formats)=

Image Formats in the Rich Text Editor

On loading, Wagtail will search for any app with the file image_formats.py and execute the contents. This provides a way to customize the formatting options shown to the editor when inserting images in the RichTextField editor.

As an example, add a "thumbnail" format:

# image_formats.py
from wagtail.images.formats import Format, register_image_format

register_image_format(Format('thumbnail', 'Thumbnail', 'richtext-image thumbnail', 'max-120x120'))

To begin, import the Format class, register_image_format function, and optionally unregister_image_format function. To register a new Format, call the register_image_format with the Format object as the argument. The Format class takes the following constructor arguments:

name\ The unique key used to identify the format. To unregister this format, call unregister_image_format with this string as the only argument.

label\ The label used in the chooser form when inserting the image into the RichTextField.

classname\ The string to assign to the class attribute of the generated <img> tag.

Any class names you provide must have CSS rules matching them written separately, as part of the frontend CSS code. Specifying a `classname` value of `left` will only ensure that class is output in the generated markup, it won't cause the image to align itself left.

filter_spec The string specification to create the image rendition. For more, see [](image_tag).

To unregister, call unregister_image_format with the string of the name of the Format as the only argument.

Unregistering ``Format`` objects will cause errors when viewing or editing pages that reference them.

(custom_edit_handler_forms)=

Customizing generated forms

.. class:: wagtail.admin.forms.WagtailAdminModelForm
.. class:: wagtail.admin.forms.WagtailAdminPageForm

Wagtail automatically generates forms using the panels configured on the model. By default, this form subclasses WagtailAdminModelForm, or WagtailAdminPageForm for pages. A custom base form class can be configured by setting the base_form_class attribute on any model. Custom forms for snippets must subclass WagtailAdminModelForm, and custom forms for pages must subclass WagtailAdminPageForm.

This can be used to add non-model fields to the form, to automatically generate field content, or to add custom validation logic for your models:

from django import forms
from django.db import models
import geocoder  # not in Wagtail, for example only - https://geocoder.readthedocs.io/
from wagtail.admin.panels import TitleFieldPanel, FieldPanel
from wagtail.admin.forms import WagtailAdminPageForm
from wagtail.models import Page


class EventPageForm(WagtailAdminPageForm):
    address = forms.CharField()

    def clean(self):
        cleaned_data = super().clean()

        # Make sure that the event starts before it ends
        start_date = cleaned_data['start_date']
        end_date = cleaned_data['end_date']
        if start_date and end_date and start_date > end_date:
            self.add_error('end_date', 'The end date must be after the start date')

        return cleaned_data

    def save(self, commit=True):
        page = super().save(commit=False)

        # Update the duration field from the submitted dates
        page.duration = (page.end_date - page.start_date).days

        # Fetch the location by geocoding the address
        page.location = geocoder.arcgis(self.cleaned_data['address'])

        if commit:
            page.save()
        return page


class EventPage(Page):
    start_date = models.DateField()
    end_date = models.DateField()
    duration = models.IntegerField()
    location = models.CharField(max_length=255)

    content_panels = [
        TitleFieldPanel('title'),
        FieldPanel('start_date'),
        FieldPanel('end_date'),
        FieldPanel('address'),
    ]
    base_form_class = EventPageForm

Wagtail will generate a new subclass of this form for the model, adding any fields defined in panels or content_panels. Any fields already defined on the model will not be overridden by these automatically added fields, so the form field for a model field can be overridden by adding it to the custom form.

(custom_page_copy_form)=

Customizing the generated copy page form

.. class:: wagtail.admin.forms.CopyForm

When copying a page, Wagtail will generate a form to allow the user to modify the copied page. By default, this form subclasses CopyForm. A custom base form class can be configured by setting the copy_form_class attribute on any model. Custom forms must subclass CopyForm.

This can be used to specify alterations to the copied form on a per-model basis.

For example, auto-incrementing the slug field:

from django import forms
from django.db import models

from wagtail.admin.forms.pages import CopyForm
from wagtail.admin.panels import FieldPanel
from wagtail.models import Page


class CustomCopyForm(CopyForm):
    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
        """
        Override the default copy form to auto-increment the slug.
        """
        super().__init__(*args, **kwargs)
        suffix = 2 # set initial_slug as incremented slug
        parent_page = self.page.get_parent()
        if self.page.slug:
            try:
                suffix = int(self.page.slug[-1])+1
                base_slug = self.page.slug[:-2]

            except ValueError:
                base_slug = self.page.slug

        new_slug = base_slug + f"-{suffix}"
        while not Page._slug_is_available(new_slug, parent_page):
            suffix += 1
            new_slug = f"{base_slug}-{suffix}"

        self.fields["new_slug"].initial = new_slug

class BlogPage(Page):
    copy_form_class = CustomCopyForm # Set the custom copy form for all EventPage models

    introduction = models.TextField(blank=True)
    body = RichTextField()

    content_panels = Page.content_panels + [
        FieldPanel('introduction'),
        FieldPanel('body'),
    ]