How to override and extend basic Django admin templates?

Question

How do I override an admin template (e.g. admin/index.html) while at the same time extending it (see https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/ref/contrib/admin/#overriding-vs-replacing-an-admin-template)?

First - I know that this question has been asked and answered before (see Django: Overriding AND extending an app template) but as the answer says it isn't directly applicable if you're using the app_directories template loader (which is most of the time).

My current workaround is to make copies and extend from them instead of extending directly from the admin templates. This works great but it's really confusing and adds extra work when the admin templates change.

It could think of some custom extend-tag for the templates but I don't want to reinvent the wheel if there already exists a solution.

On a side note: Does anybody know if this problem will be addressed by Django itself?

Answer 1

Update:

Read the Docs for your version of Django. e.g.

https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.11/ref/contrib/admin/#admin-overriding-templates https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/2.0/ref/contrib/admin/#admin-overriding-templates https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.0/ref/contrib/admin/#admin-overriding-templates

Original answer from 2011:

I had the same issue about a year and a half ago and I found a nice template loader on djangosnippets.org that makes this easy. It allows you to extend a template in a specific app, giving you the ability to create your own admin/index.html that extends the admin/index.html template from the admin app. Like this:

{% extends "admin:admin/index.html" %}

{% block sidebar %}
    {{block.super}}
    <div>
        <h1>Extra links</h1>
        <a href="/admin/extra/">My extra link</a>
    </div>
{% endblock %}

I've given a full example on how to use this template loader in a blog post on my website.