Django: Reference user's first_name using AbstractUser?

Question

My goal is to add non-authentication values to a user. Like, bio, nationality, etc. I am trying to use a custom user model. I am having trouble accessing the values. I can use the new ones I created, but not the original ones like first_name, last_name, email.

my model.py looks like

from django.db import models

from django.contrib.auth.models import AbstractUser

class User(AbstractUser):
    bio = models.CharField(max_length=500, blank=True)    
    phone = models.CharField(max_length=20, blank=True)

Settings.py I added:

AUTH_USER_MODEL = 'publication.User'

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    'publication.apps.PublicationConfig,
    ...

My admin.py:

from django.contrib import admin
from django.contrib.auth.admin import UserAdmin
from .models import User

admin.site.register(User, UserAdmin)

How to I add bio and nickname to the admin page?

And how do I access first name, email, bio, phone outside in forms and such?

Many thanks.

Check https://stackoverflow.com/questions/15012235/using-django-auth-useradmin-for-a-custom-user-model, I think that with the most upvoted answers you should be fine. You need to extend `UserAdmin` with your fields. — gdef_, Apr 05 '21 at 19:36
I did run the migrations! Early on to make sure that the user model was done properly. Migrating is major headache according to the docs. I am having a little trouble figuring this one out @gdef_ :/ — Gorgonzola, Apr 06 '21 at 15:27

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 06 '21 at 16:04

You are using Django's UserAdmin, that is adding all the things you see in the admin forms for your user. You can see the code here.

If you want to add your fields you need to create a custom model admin class from scratch or extend the one you want. You can extend and override things in the UserAdmin that you are using. Check the structure of add_fieldsets and fieldsets, adding fields to those tuples will add them to the admin.

For example to add bio and phone to the form:

@admin.register(models.User)
class CustomUserAdmin(UserAdmin):
    fieldsets = (
        (None, {'fields': ('bio', 'phone')}),
    ) + UserAdmin.fieldsets
    add_fieldsets = (
        (None, {'fields': ('bio', 'phone')}),
    ) + UserAdmin.fieldsets

Read more about how to customize the admin here.

I was able to get the fields in the admin site but whenever I try and add a user I get an error. `First, enter a username and password. Then, you’ll be able to edit more user options. Please correct the errors below.` But there are no errors in the fields. I tried empty, filled. Only username and pass. But nothing. — Gorgonzola, Apr 07 '21 at 01:03

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 13 '21 at 00:10

Adding to @gdef_'s answer,

The best way to add information to a user I found was to do a custom user model using Abstractuser. This simplified things a lot. This has to be done early in the project before the first migration, actually, I would recommend this to be done every time. I will use this from now on.

Things worth noting, when registering models in admin.py. The abstract models should be registered this way:

admin.site.register(CustomUser,CustomUserAdmin)

but for other models use a decorator:

@admin.register(Story)
class StoryAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    list_display = ('id','title','get_date_formatted', 'author')
    ... 
    more stuff

Django: Reference user's first_name using AbstractUser?

2 Answers2