m2m admin relationship selector with filter_horizontal and large datasets

[James Y]

I have a Category model that is m2m with an Article model and need to make categories selectable in my article admin. So I'm using a filter_horizontal and the problem is that I have thousands of categories and do not want to load them all into the left hand side (lhs) of filter_horizontal.

Is there a way to limit the lhs to just a search functionality instead of a category browse?

Is there another widget I should use just for searching categories to make m2m relationships?

Thanks

[Collin Anderson]

Hi,

Check out raw_id_fields if you haven't.

Either on ArticleAdmin:

raw_id_fields = ['categories']

Or as an inline:

class CategoryInline(models.TabularInline):
    model = Article.categories.through
    extra = 0
    raw_id_fields = ['category']

Collin

[James Y]

Thanks Collin, I looked at raw field ids, but feels too basic.  I'm attempting to implement autocomplete_light which seems to offer m2m selection.  

IT would seem that this would be a common problem: select from a large list without displaying that entire list.  

filter_horizontal would work if I could turn off the left hand side list and still get the search and select functions. I wish I had time to extend that.