Add a sortable Location column to the device page

[bluestick999]

Add a sortable Location column to the device page

[nemesifier]

Is this a question or a feature request?

In theory you could achieve this by "monkey patching" openwisp_controller.config.admini.DeviceAdmin.

Not all users use geographic locations so taking up space for a column not everybody uses may not be a good default choice but it's definitely possible to show it.

[bluestick999]

Would you be able to give me some guidance? I assume this would involve editting part of the openwisp web page as I am not seeing a file with this name

[bluestick999]

I guess in terms of feature request, a column filter option in the main device table page to select dispayed columns by way of tickboxes

[nemesifier]

Did you deploy with ansible-openwisp2 right?

[bluestick999]

Morning, yes I deployed with ansible

[nemesifier]

I do not recommend modifying the source code of OpenWISP because the modification would get lost when you upgrade. Unless you want to maintain a separate fork and keep it up to date with master on your own, which is tedious.

Instead I recommend to extend OpenWISP and modify only this small detail that you need.

The following should work, but may need some adjustment.

Upload a python file like the following to /opt/openwisp2/openwisp2/controller_extension.py:

from django.apps import AppConfig


class ControllerExtensionConfig(AppConfig):
    name = "openwisp2.controller_extension"

    def ready(self, *args, **kwargs):
        from openwisp_monitoring.device.admin import DeviceAdmin

        def get_device_location(self, obj):
            return obj.devicelocation.location if obj.devicelocation else None
        get_device_location.short_description = "Location"

        # Attach method dynamically
        setattr(DeviceAdmin, "get_device_location", get_device_location)

        # Insert into list_display before "ip"
        list_columns = DeviceAdmin.list_display
        ip_address_index = list_columns.index("ip")
        list_columns.insert(ip_address_index + 1, "get_device_location")

At the end of your settings.py, add:

INSTALLED_APPS.append("openwisp2.controller_extension.ControllerExtensionConfig")

Restart the web application:

supervisorctl restart openwisp2

You can use the openwisp2_extra_django_settings_instructions ansible role variable to make sure your playbook wouldn't delete this (which would happen if you do this change by hand and then run the playbook), eg:

# in the vars section of your ansible playbook YAML
vars:
  openwisp2_extra_django_settings_instructions:
    - INSTALLED_APPS.append("openwisp2.controller_extension.ControllerExtensionConfig")

You could also upload the extra python file with ansible if you want to make this cleanly. If you manage it with ansible it should not be necessary to restart the application with supervisorctl because ansible already does that if it detects changes to the settings.py.

If the above works, it should look like the following screenshot:

If it doesn't work let me know, I hope to help more people to understand how to extend/modify OpenWISP to fit their needs.

A lot more things are possible by extending OpenWISP in this way, eg: listen to events and trigger custom actions.

[bluestick999]

am i right about the INSTALLED_APPS pointing to the physical controller_extension.py file with the correct path?

[nemesifier]

am i right about the INSTALLED_APPS pointing to the physical controller_extension.py file with the correct path?

Yes, that's right.

[nemesifier]

I think I know why this is happening, I'll update you shortly.

[nemesifier]

I was testing this in development mode. When all the modules are enabled, OpenWISP monitoring overrides the DeviceAdmin and takes over, so the code needed to take that into account. I updated the example above accordingly, please try again.

[bluestick999]

Bingo! That did the trick, i really appreciate all your help