Adminita

A modern, beautiful Django admin theme built with Tailwind CSS v4. Transform your Django admin interface into a sleek, responsive dashboard with dark mode support.

✨ Features

🎨 Modern UI - Clean, professional interface built with Tailwind CSS v4
🌓 Dark Mode - System preference detection with manual toggle
📱 Responsive Design - Works seamlessly on desktop. Responsive navigation and touch-friendly controls for phones and tablets
🎯 Easy Integration - Drop-in replacement for Django's default admin
⚡ Fast - Optimized CSS with no unnecessary bloat
🔧 Customizable - Easy to customize colors and styling
🆓 Open Source - MIT licensed, free to use and modify

📸 Screenshots

Light Mode

Dark Mode

🚀 Quick Start

Installation

Install via pip (recommended for production):

pip install adminita

Or install from source (for development):

git clone https://github.com/djangify/adminita.git
cd adminita
pip install -e .

Configuration

Add to INSTALLED_APPS in your Django settings (must be before django.contrib.admin):

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    "adminita",  # Must be FIRST!
    "django.contrib.admin",
    "django.contrib.auth",
    "django.contrib.contenttypes",
    "django.contrib.sessions",
    "django.contrib.messages",
    "django.contrib.staticfiles",
    # ... your other apps
]

Configure static files:

STATIC_URL = "/static/"
STATIC_ROOT = BASE_DIR / "staticfiles"

Add customization to project urls.py file: Adminita uses Django's built-in admin site customization. Add these lines to your urls.py:

from django.contrib import admin

admin.site.site_header = "Your Site Name"
admin.site.site_title = "Your Site Title" 
admin.site.index_title = "Welcome to Your Site"

Collect static files:

python manage.py collectstatic --noinput

Run your server:

python manage.py runserver

Visit the admin at http://localhost:8000/admin/

That's it! Your Django admin should now have the Adminita theme applied.

🎨 Customization

Changing Colors

Adminita uses Tailwind CSS v4's new @theme syntax. To customize colors:

Edit the source CSS at adminita/static/src/input.css:

@theme {
  /* Change primary colors to match your brand */
  --color-primary-500: #10b981; /* Your brand color */
  --color-primary-600: #059669; /* Darker shade */
  --color-primary-700: #047857; /* Even darker */
}

Rebuild the CSS:

cd path/to/adminita
npm install  # If you haven't already
npm run build

Collect static files in your project:

python manage.py collectstatic --noinput

Available Color Variables

--color-primary-50 through --color-primary-950
--color-gray-50 through --color-gray-900
--color-gray-750 (custom for dark mode)

🔧 Utility Classes

Adminita provides utility classes to help with common admin patterns.

AlwaysVisibleAdmin

Ensures models always appear in the admin index, even if they have custom permissions:

from adminita.utils import AlwaysVisibleAdmin

@admin.register(MyModel)
class MyModelAdmin(AlwaysVisibleAdmin):
    pass

SingletonAdmin

For models that should only have one instance (like Site Settings):

from adminita.utils import SingletonAdmin

@admin.register(SiteConfiguration)
class SiteConfigurationAdmin(SingletonAdmin):
    list_display = ['site_name']

🛠️ Development

Setting Up Development Environment

Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/djangify/adminita.git
cd adminita

Create a virtual environment:

python -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate  # On Windows: venv\Scripts\activate

Install dependencies:

pip install -r requirements.txt
npm install

Build CSS:

npm run build    # One-time build
npm run watch    # Auto-rebuild on changes

Run the demo project:

python manage.py migrate
python manage.py createsuperuser
python manage.py runserver

Project Structure

adminita/
├── adminita/                  # The Django app package
│   ├── static/
│   │   ├── css/
│   │   │   └── adminita-tailwind.css    # Generated CSS (don't edit)
│   │   ├── js/
│   │   │   └── adminita-tailwind.js      # JavaScript for dark mode & mobile menu
│   │   └── src/
│   │       └── input.css     # Source CSS with Tailwind v4 syntax
│   ├── templates/
│   │   └── admin/            # Template overrides
│   │       ├── base.html
│   │       ├── base_site.html
│   │       ├── index.html
│   │       ├── login.html
│   │       ├── change_list.html
│   │       └── change_form.html
│   ├── __init__.py
│   └── apps.py
├── config/                    # Django project settings
│   ├── settings.py
│   ├── urls.py
│   └── wsgi.py
├── manage.py
├── package.json              # Node.js dependencies for Tailwind
├── pyproject.toml            # Python package configuration
└── README.md

🐛 Known Issues

Issue: Search and filters break after zero-result state

Symptoms

Search returns correct results
Filters work initially
After any action that returns zero results, filters stop working
JavaScript error: undefined is not iterable in actions.js

Root cause

Django's admin/js/actions.js expects specific DOM elements that may not exist when the result set is empty, causing a JavaScript crash that breaks subsequent page functionality.

Workaround

Disable admin actions or add error handling for the zero-result state.

Known Limitations

These changes make Adminita usable on mobile, not optimized for mobile:

Complex tables - Very wide tables still require horizontal scrolling
Inline formsets - Tabular inlines are cramped; consider using stacked inlines for mobile-heavy use cases
Rich text editors - TinyMCE and similar may have their own mobile issues
Date/time pickers - Django's default widgets are desktop-focused

Future Improvements (Community PRs Welcome)

Card-based table view option for mobile (instead of horizontal scroll)
Bottom navigation bar for common actions
Pull-to-refresh on list pages
Improved inline formset mobile layout
Native date/time inputs on mobile ()

📚 Documentation

Tailwind CSS v4 Notes

Adminita uses Tailwind CSS v4, which has a different syntax than v3:

Uses @import "tailwindcss" instead of @tailwind directives
Theme customization uses @theme {} blocks in CSS
More streamlined, CSS-first approach

Template Inheritance

When extending Adminita templates in your own project:

{% extends "admin/base.html" %}

Not adminita/admin/base.html - Django finds templates automatically because adminita is in INSTALLED_APPS.

🤝 Contributing

We welcome contributions! Adminita is an open-source project and we'd love your help making it better. See CONTRIBUTING.md for the full guide (setup, coding standards, PR process) and our Code of Conduct.

Priority Issues

We especially need help with:

📱 Mobile Responsiveness - Testing on various devices
♿ Accessibility - ARIA labels, keyboard navigation, screen reader support
🎨 Additional Themes - Creating alternative color schemes
🧪 Test Coverage - Expanding the test suite
📝 Documentation - Improving guides and examples

📦 Requirements

Python 3.10+
Django 4.2+
Node.js (for building CSS during development)
npm (for managing Tailwind CSS)

🧪 Testing

# Run the test suite
pytest

# Or via Django's test runner
python manage.py test

Tests run automatically on every pull request via GitHub Actions across supported Python/Django versions. Manual checks worth doing before submitting a PR: multiple browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge), dark mode toggle, and responsive layout on mobile.

📄 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

👏 Acknowledgments

Built with Django
Styled with Tailwind CSS v4
Inspired by modern admin dashboards

🔗 Links

GitHub: https://github.com/djangify/adminita
Issues: https://github.com/djangify/adminita/issues
PyPI: https://pypi.org/project/adminita/
Website - GitHub: https://github.com/djangify/adminita_demo
Website: https://adminita.todiane.com (demo user login available)

💬 Support

Having trouble? Here are some ways to get help:

🗺️ Roadmap

Publish to PyPI
Fix dark mode toggle functionality
Add more customization options
Create additional color themes
Improve accessibility (ARIA labels, keyboard navigation)
Expand automated test coverage
Create video tutorials
Add support for Django inline forms
Create a documentation website

⭐ Star History

If you find Adminita useful, please consider giving it a star on GitHub! It helps others discover the project.

Made with ❤️ by a Django enthusiast

Note: This is an open-source project. I appreciate your patience and contributions!

Developer: https://www.todiane.com

Developer LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/todianedev

Coffee Always Welcome: https://ko-fi.com/todianedev ❤️

Maintained by Diane Corriette

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
Latest commit History 75 Commits
.github		.github
adminita		adminita
config		config
tests		tests
.gitignore		.gitignore
CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md		CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md
CONTRIBUTING.md		CONTRIBUTING.md
LICENSE.md		LICENSE.md
MANIFEST.in		MANIFEST.in
OPEN_SOURCE.md		OPEN_SOURCE.md
README.md		README.md
manage.py		manage.py
package-lock.json		package-lock.json
package.json		package.json
pyproject.toml		pyproject.toml
pytest.ini		pytest.ini
requirements.txt		requirements.txt

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