Question

I have a Django form class with around 8 fields. How do I dynamically make all these form fields hidden in one of my views?

Sample:

class FormName(forms.Form):
    first_name = forms.CharField(max_length=20, widget=forms.TextInput(attrs="class":"validate[required,first_name]","tabindex":"4"}), required=True)
    middle_name = forms.CharField(max_length=20, widget=forms.TextInput(attrs="class":"validate[middle_name]","tabindex":"5"}), required=False)
    last_name = forms.CharField(max_length=40, widget=forms.TextInput(attrs="class":"validate[required,last_name]","tabindex":"6"}), required=True)

The reason I want to do this is because I would be using the same form in one of the sign up pages and then again use a similar form elsewhere, where I want these form fields to be hidden. I don’t want to create a separate class duplicating the same fields with “widget=forms.HiddenInput()”.

Answer 1

In cases when you need a form with hidden inputs, you can notify your form, by passing additional variable to the __init__ method like: form = FormName(is_hidden=True). And your form might be looking like follows:

class FormName(forms.Form):
    first_name = forms.CharField(max_length=20, widget=forms.TextInput(attrs="class":"validate[required,first_name]","tabindex":"4"}), required=True)
    middle_name = forms.CharField(max_length=20, widget=forms.TextInput(attrs="class":"validate[middle_name]","tabindex":"5"}), required=False)
    last_name = forms.CharField(max_length=40, widget=forms.TextInput(attrs="class":"validate[required,last_name]","tabindex":"6"}), required=True)

    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
        is_hidden = kwargs.pop('is_hidden', None)
        super(FormName, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)
        if is_hidden:
            self.fields['first_name'].widget = forms.HiddenInput()
            self.fields['middle_name'].widget = forms.HiddenInput()
            self.fields['last_name'].widget = forms.HiddenInput()

In all other cases you can use your form as ussual, without passing is_hidden variable, and it will be using default widgets you defined.

Also, you can iterate over self.fields dictionary, and make all your field widgets hidden without having to override each of them manualy