Checking the right boxes

A student created a modelform but was struggling with one of the fields. He wanted it to render as checkboxes that would allow the user to select multiple choices. I was surprised that it was actually a little challenging to find any article online that showed one how exactly to do this. Perhaps I wasn't using the right key words in my search? I did figure it out fairly quickly in the end.

models.py

class Cats(models.Model):

fav_toys = models.CharField(max_length=100)

forms.py

TOYS = [

('Rubberband', 'Rubberband'),

('Ball', 'Ball'),

('Feather', 'Feather'),

]

class CatForm(ModelForm):

class Meta:

model = Cats

fields = '__all__'

widgets = {

'fav_toys': forms.CheckboxSelectMultiple(choices=TOYS),

}

And that did the trick! It's interesting that when the choices were defined in models.py rather than forms.py, it didn't work. I'm not entirely sure as to why that was. Perhaps one day, I will find out why.

Comments

Snakes and ladders

I've started on my Python course. So far, the code has been familiar because the first few basic codes are similar to Javascript. And then modules happened. Confusion and despair! What is the world is 'if __name__ == "__main__": ' and why must I reach this section of my course on a public holiday when none of the instructors are in :( Stack overflow to the rescue, providing me a lifeline while I was drowning in a pit of serpents. I feel eternally indebted to a particular Mr Fooz. Picture from here From my understanding, when the Python interpreter reads a source file, it first sets the variable __name__ and then it executes all the code in the file. If that particular file that you are running(i.e. your module) is the main program, the interpreter will assign '__name__ = "__main__" '. Thereafter, any code in the aforementioned 'if' statement is run. If you have, instead, imported a module, the interpreter assigns '__name__ ...

I gotta feeling...

I've been helping a colleague with his portfolio site. He's making it retro video game themed at my suggestion. He found an interesting pixelated font called arcade classic and used it for the headings on his page. Unfortunately, some of the letters almost overlapped, making it not quite readable. Before letter spacing I looked into typography ages ago and learnt about letter and word spacing and wondered if that was something that I could fiddle with using CSS. Turns out it is a property you can customise. I opened up Chrome Dev tools and added 3 pixels of letter spacing and it looked so much better. And there's letter spacing too, so that's pretty neat. After letter spacing Can't say CSS is my favourite thing ever but it's always nice to learn something new in unexpected ways.

Fizzbuzz

I was today years old when I found out what fizzbuzz was. Yes, I'm late to the party. I was in an interview where the interviewer mentioned that ordinarily they would ask interviewees in for a round of fizzbuzz challenges, as I know. Actually sir, no, I don't know 👀 But he sounded so certain that I must surely know what it is that I was afraid to say anything so I did what I always do when I panic. Look right back saying not a word. I googled this mysterious fizzbuzz problem: It looks pretty easy. I don't think he meant this actual problem, but problems like this. Because this problem is way too easy to be an actual problem someone asks in an interview. I decided to work on it for fun: Yup. Super easy. I wish this is all I were asked in an interview 😄

I do it for my cat

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