Question

The view:

 def GRID_ServerDropDownSearch(request):
         if 'r' in request.GET and request.GET['r']:
        r = request.GET['r']
        servers = SERVERS.objects.get(name=r)
    drives = servers.drives_set.all()[0:]
    memory = servers.memory_set.all()[0:]
    return render_to_response('GRID_ServerDropDownSearchResults.html',
    {'servers':servers, 'query':r, 'drives':drives, 'memory':memory})
    else:
    return render_to_response('GRID_search_form.html', {'error': True})

The form:

class ServerDropDownForm(forms.Form):

r = forms.ModelChoiceField(queryset = SERVERS.objects.all(), required=False)

The template:

 <div>
 <form action="/ServerDropDownSearch/" method="GET">
    {{ form.as_table }}
     <input type = "Submit" value = "Submit">
  </form>
  </div>

The resulting drop-down form works flawlessly. However, immediately to the left of the drop-down list is an “R” (capital r). I know it has to do with the “r” specified in the above code. (If I replace each incidence of r with, say, z then a “Z” appears). However:

1. WHY does it get capitalized ? Is this just the default case specified in the engine ?
2. How can I hide that “R” so that, instead, it can indicate “Select A Server”, or something more descriptive.

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Django derives the label for a form field from the corresponding variable name, but “humanizes” it. For example, a field called my_variable would translate to “My variable”.

The simplest way to fix this would be to give a more human-readable name to the field:

server = forms.ModelChoiceField(queryset = SERVERS.objects.all(), required=False)

However, you can also pass a string to use as the label via the form field’s label parameter:

r = forms.ModelChoiceField(queryset = SERVERS.objects.all(), required=False, label='Select a server')