Django generic editing views: Styled HTML form is not saved - html

Question

I'm using Django's generic editing views CreateView, UpdateView, etc. together with the auto-generated HTML forms and it works fine:
# views.py
class TagCreate(CreateView):
template_name = 'app/tag_form.html'
model = Tag
fields = ['name', 'description', 'color']
class TagUpdate(UpdateView):
model = Tag
fields = ['name', 'description', 'color']
<!-- app/tag_form.html -->
{% extends 'app/base.html' %}
{% block content %}
<form method="post">
{% csrf_token %}
{{ form.as_p }}
<input type="submit" value="Save">
</form>
{% endblock %}
Now, I want to customize the generated form {{ form.as_p }} with bootstrap:
{% extends 'app/base.html' %}
{% block content %}
<form method="post">
{% csrf_token %}
<div class="form-group">
<label for="nameInput">Name</label>
<input class="form-control" type="text" id="nameInput" placeholder="Name" value="{{ tag.name }}">
</div>
<div class="form-group">
<label for="descrInput">Description</label>
<input class="form-control" type="text" id="descrInput" placeholder="Description" value="{{ tag.description }}">
</div>
<div class="form-group">
<label for="colorInput">Color</label>
<input class="form-control" type="color" id="colorInput" placeholder="Color" value="{{ tag.color }}">
</div>
<input type="submit" value="Save">
</form>
{% endblock %}
The page renders nicely exactly how I want it to, but when I click the "Save" button, nothing happens and the data is no longer saved, nor am I forwarded to the detail view like I was before.
I tried following the Django documentation on how to render fields manually; again, it's rendered correctly, but the data isn't saved.
How can I properly customize forms and still use my generic editing views?
Edit: My full code his here.

Answer 1

Following the documentation you have to access the form inputs manually and django will populate them accordingly in the template.
{% extends 'app/base.html' %}
{% block content %}
<form method="post">
{% csrf_token %}
<div class="form-group">
<label for="nameInput">Name</label>
{{ form.name }}
</div>
<div class="form-group">
<label for="descrInput">Description</label>
{{ form.description }}
</div>
<div class="form-group">
<label for="colorInput">Color</label>
{{ form.color }}
</div>
<input type="submit" value="Save">
</form>
{% endblock %}
From there, to add classes, you will have to override the CreateView get_form in order to add in what we need:
class TagCreate(CreateView):
template_name = 'app/tag_form.html'
model = Tag
fields = ['name', 'description', 'color']
def get_form(self, form_class):
form = super(TagCreate, self).get_form(form_class)
form.fields['name'].widget = forms.TextInput(attrs={'class': 'form-control', 'placeholder': 'Name' })
form.fields['description'].widget = forms.TextInput(attrs={'class': 'form-control', 'placeholder': 'Description' })
form.fields['color'].widget = forms.TextInput(attrs={'class': 'form-control', 'placeholder': 'Color' })
return form
Although, this would be a lot cleaner if using ModelForms

Answer 2

in your form input tag set the "name" attribute, field name as value
something like this:
...
<input class="form-control" type="text" id="nameInput" placeholder="Name" name="name" value="{{ tag.name }}">
...
<input class="form-control" type="text" id="descrInput" placeholder="Description" name="description" value="{{ tag.description }}">
...
<input class="form-control" type="color" id="colorInput" placeholder="Color" name="color" value="{{ tag.color }}">
...