Snippet models

Here’s an example snippet model:

from django.db import models

from wagtail.admin.panels import FieldPanel
from wagtail.snippets.models import register_snippet

# ...

@register_snippet
class Advert(models.Model):
    url = models.URLField(null=True, blank=True)
    text = models.CharField(max_length=255)

    panels = [
        FieldPanel('url'),
        FieldPanel('text'),
    ]

    def __str__(self):
        return self.text

The Advert model uses the basic Django model class and defines two properties: text and URL. The editing interface is very close to that provided for Page-derived models, with fields assigned in the panels property. Snippets do not use multiple tabs of fields, nor do they provide the “save as draft” or “submit for moderation” features.

@register_snippet tells Wagtail to treat the model as a snippet. The panels list defines the fields to show on the snippet editing page. It’s also important to provide a string representation of the class through def __str__(self): so that the snippet objects make sense when listed in the Wagtail admin.

Including snippets in template tags

The simplest way to make your snippets available to templates is with a template tag. This is mostly done with vanilla Django, so perhaps reviewing Django’s documentation for custom template tags will be more helpful. We’ll go over the basics, though, and point out any considerations to make for Wagtail.

First, add a new python file to a templatetags folder within your app - for example, myproject/demo/templatetags/demo_tags.py. We’ll need to load some Django modules and our app’s models, and ready the register decorator:

from django import template
from demo.models import Advert

register = template.Library()

# ...

# Advert snippets
@register.inclusion_tag('demo/tags/adverts.html', takes_context=True)
def adverts(context):
    return {
        'adverts': Advert.objects.all(),
        'request': context['request'],
    }

@register.inclusion_tag() takes two variables: a template and a boolean on whether that template should be passed a request context. It’s a good idea to include request contexts in your custom template tags, since some Wagtail-specific template tags like pageurl need the context to work properly. The template tag function could take arguments and filter the adverts to return a specific instance of the model, but for brevity we’ll just use Advert.objects.all().

Here’s what’s in the template used by this template tag:

{% for advert in adverts %}
    <p>
        <a href="{{ advert.url }}">
            {{ advert.text }}
        </a>
    </p>
{% endfor %}

Then, in your own page templates, you can include your snippet template tag with:

{% load wagtailcore_tags demo_tags %}

...

{% block content %}

    ...

    {% adverts %}

{% endblock %}

Binding pages to snippets

In the above example, the list of adverts is a fixed list that is displayed via the custom template tag independent of any other content on the page. This might be what you want for a common panel in a sidebar, but, in another scenario, you might wish to display just one specific instance of a snippet on a particular page. This can be accomplished by defining a foreign key to the snippet model within your page model and adding a FieldPanel to the page’s content_panels list. For example, if you wanted to display a specific advert on a BookPage instance:

  # ...
  class BookPage(Page):
      advert = models.ForeignKey(
          'demo.Advert',
          null=True,
          blank=True,
          on_delete=models.SET_NULL,
          related_name='+'
      )

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

The snippet could then be accessed within your template as page.advert.

To attach multiple adverts to a page, the FieldPanel can be placed on an inline child object of BookPage rather than on BookPage itself. Here, this child model is named BookPageAdvertPlacement (so called because there is one such object for each time that an advert is placed on a BookPage):

from django.db import models

from wagtail.models import Page, Orderable

from modelcluster.fields import ParentalKey

# ...

class BookPageAdvertPlacement(Orderable, models.Model):
    page = ParentalKey('demo.BookPage', on_delete=models.CASCADE, related_name='advert_placements')
    advert = models.ForeignKey('demo.Advert', on_delete=models.CASCADE, related_name='+')

    class Meta(Orderable.Meta):
        verbose_name = "advert placement"
        verbose_name_plural = "advert placements"

    panels = [
        FieldPanel('advert'),
    ]

    def __str__(self):
        return self.page.title + " -> " + self.advert.text


class BookPage(Page):
    # ...

    content_panels = Page.content_panels + [
        InlinePanel('advert_placements', label="Adverts"),
        # ...
    ]

These child objects are now accessible through the page’s advert_placements property, and from there we can access the linked Advert snippet as advert. In the template for BookPage, we could include the following:

{% for advert_placement in page.advert_placements.all %}
    <p>
        <a href="{{ advert_placement.advert.url }}">
            {{ advert_placement.advert.text }}
        </a>
    </p>
{% endfor %}

Making snippets previewable

If a snippet model inherits from PreviewableMixin, Wagtail will automatically add a live preview panel in the editor. In addition to inheriting the mixin, the model must also override get_preview_template() or serve_preview(). For example, the Advert snippet could be made previewable as follows:

# ...

from wagtail.models import PreviewableMixin

# ...

@register_snippet
class Advert(PreviewableMixin, models.Model):
    url = models.URLField(null=True, blank=True)
    text = models.CharField(max_length=255)

    panels = [
        FieldPanel('url'),
        FieldPanel('text'),
    ]

    def get_preview_template(self, request, mode_name):
        return "demo/previews/advert.html"

With the following demo/previews/advert.html template:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
    <head>
        <title>{{ object.text }}</title>
    </head>
    <body>
        <a href="{{ object.url }}">{{ object.text }}</a>
    </body>
</html>

The variables available in the default context are request (a fake HttpRequest object) and object (the snippet instance). To customise the context, you can override the get_preview_context() method.

By default, the serve_preview method returns a TemplateResponse that is rendered using the request object, the template returned by get_preview_template, and the context object returned by get_preview_context. You can override the serve_preview method to customise the rendering and/or routing logic.

Similar to pages, you can define multiple preview modes by overriding the preview_modes property. For example, the following Advert snippet has two preview modes:

# ...

from wagtail.models import PreviewableMixin

# ...

@register_snippet
class Advert(PreviewableMixin, models.Model):
    url = models.URLField(null=True, blank=True)
    text = models.CharField(max_length=255)

    panels = [
        FieldPanel('url'),
        FieldPanel('text'),
    ]

    @property
    def preview_modes(self):
        return PreviewableMixin.DEFAULT_PREVIEW_MODES + [("alt", "Alternate")]

    def get_preview_template(self, request, mode_name):
        templates = {
            "": "demo/previews/advert.html",  # Default preview mode
            "alt": "demo/previews/advert_alt.html",  # Alternate preview mode
        }
        return templates.get(mode_name, templates[""])

    def get_preview_context(self, request, mode_name):
        context = super().get_preview_context(request, mode_name)
        if mode_name == "alt":
            context["extra_context"] = "Alternate preview mode"
        return context

Making snippets searchable

If a snippet model inherits from wagtail.search.index.Indexed, as described in Indexing custom models, Wagtail will automatically add a search box to the chooser interface for that snippet type. For example, the Advert snippet could be made searchable as follows:

# ...

from wagtail.search import index

# ...

@register_snippet
class Advert(index.Indexed, models.Model):
    url = models.URLField(null=True, blank=True)
    text = models.CharField(max_length=255)

    panels = [
        FieldPanel('url'),
        FieldPanel('text'),
    ]

    search_fields = [
        index.SearchField('text', partial_match=True),
    ]

Saving revisions of snippets

If a snippet model inherits from RevisionMixin, Wagtail will automatically save revisions when you save any changes in the snippets admin. In addition to inheriting the mixin, it is recommended to define a GenericRelation to the Revision model and override the revisions property to return the GenericRelation. For example, the Advert snippet could be made revisable as follows:

# ...

from django.contrib.contenttypes.fields import GenericRelation
from wagtail.models import RevisionMixin

# ...

@register_snippet
class Advert(RevisionMixin, models.Model):
    url = models.URLField(null=True, blank=True)
    text = models.CharField(max_length=255)
    _revisions = GenericRelation("wagtailcore.Revision", related_query_name="advert")

    panels = [
        FieldPanel('url'),
        FieldPanel('text'),
    ]

    @property
    def revisions(self):
        return self._revisions

The RevisionMixin includes a latest_revision field that needs to be added to your database table. Make sure to run the makemigrations and migrate management commands after making the above changes to apply the changes to your database.

With the RevisionMixin applied, any changes made from the snippets admin will create an instance of the Revision model that contains the state of the snippet instance. The revision instance is attached to the audit log entry of the edit action, allowing you to revert to a previous revision or compare the changes between revisions from the snippet history page.

You can also save revisions programmatically by calling the save_revision() method. After applying the mixin, it is recommended to call this method (or save the snippet in the admin) at least once for each instance of the snippet that already exists (if any), so that the latest_revision field is populated in the database table.

Saving draft changes of snippets

If a snippet model inherits from DraftStateMixin, Wagtail will automatically add a live/draft status column to the listing view, change the “Save” action menu to “Save draft”, and add a new “Publish” action menu in the editor. Any changes you save in the snippets admin will be saved as revisions and will not be reflected to the “live” snippet instance until you publish the changes.

Wagtail will also allow you to set publishing schedules for instances of the model if there is a PublishingPanel in the model’s panels definition.

For example, the Advert snippet could save draft changes and publishing schedules by defining it as follows:

# ...

from django.contrib.contenttypes.fields import GenericRelation
from wagtail.admin.panels import PublishingPanel
from wagtail.models import DraftStateMixin, RevisionMixin

# ...

@register_snippet
class Advert(DraftStateMixin, RevisionMixin, models.Model):
    url = models.URLField(null=True, blank=True)
    text = models.CharField(max_length=255)
    _revisions = GenericRelation("wagtailcore.Revision", related_query_name="advert")

    panels = [
        FieldPanel('url'),
        FieldPanel('text'),
        PublishingPanel(),
    ]

    @property
    def revisions(self):
        return self._revisions

The DraftStateMixin includes additional fields that need to be added to your database table. Make sure to run the makemigrations and migrate management commands after making the above changes to apply the changes to your database.

You can publish revisions programmatically by calling instance.publish(revision) or by calling revision.publish(). After applying the mixin, it is recommended to publish at least one revision for each instance of the snippet that already exists (if any), so that the latest_revision and live_revision fields are populated in the database table.

If you use the scheduled publishing feature, make sure that you run the publish_scheduled management command periodically. For more details, see Scheduled Publishing.

Tagging snippets

Adding tags to snippets is very similar to adding tags to pages. The only difference is that taggit.manager.TaggableManager should be used in the place of ClusterTaggableManager.

from modelcluster.fields import ParentalKey
from modelcluster.models import ClusterableModel
from taggit.models import TaggedItemBase
from taggit.managers import TaggableManager

class AdvertTag(TaggedItemBase):
    content_object = ParentalKey('demo.Advert', on_delete=models.CASCADE, related_name='tagged_items')

@register_snippet
class Advert(ClusterableModel):
    # ...
    tags = TaggableManager(through=AdvertTag, blank=True)

    panels = [
        # ...
        FieldPanel('tags'),
    ]

The documentation on tagging pages has more information on how to use tags in views.

Customising snippets admin views

You can customise the admin views for snippets by specifying a custom subclass of SnippetViewSet to register_snippet.

This can be done by removing the @register_snippet decorator on your model class and calling register_snippet (as a function, not a decorator) in your wagtail_hooks.py file instead as follows:

register_snippet(MyModel, viewset=MyModelViewSet)

For example, with the following Member model and a MemberFilterSet class:

# models.py
from django.db import models
from wagtail.admin.filters import WagtailFilterSet


class Member(models.Model):
    class ShirtSize(models.TextChoices):
        SMALL = "S", "Small"
        MEDIUM = "M", "Medium"
        LARGE = "L", "Large"
        EXTRA_LARGE = "XL", "Extra Large"

    name = models.CharField(max_length=255)
    shirt_size = models.CharField(max_length=5, choices=ShirtSize.choices, default=ShirtSize.MEDIUM)

    def get_shirt_size_display(self):
        return self.ShirtSize(self.shirt_size).label

    get_shirt_size_display.admin_order_field = "shirt_size"
    get_shirt_size_display.short_description = "Size description"


class MemberFilterSet(WagtailFilterSet):
    class Meta:
        model = Member
        fields = ["shirt_size"]

You can define a list_display attribute to specify the columns shown on the listing view. You can also add the ability to filter the listing view by defining a filterset_class attribute on a subclass of SnippetViewSet. For example:

# views.py
from wagtail.admin.ui.tables import UpdatedAtColumn
from wagtail.snippets.views.snippets import SnippetViewSet

from myapp.models import MemberFilterSet


class MemberViewSet(SnippetViewSet):
    list_display = ["name", "shirt_size", "get_shirt_size_display", UpdatedAtColumn()]
    filterset_class = MemberFilterSet

Then, pass the viewset to the register_snippet call.

# wagtail_hooks.py
from wagtail.snippets.models import register_snippet

from myapp.models import Member
from myapp.views import MemberViewSet


register_snippet(Member, viewset=MemberViewSet)

The viewset parameter of register_snippet also accepts a dotted module path to the subclass, e.g. "myapp.views.MemberViewSet".

Various additional attributes are available to customise the viewset - see SnippetViewSet.