Editing default fields' help_text for form in Django (1.11)

Question

For the past couple days I have been trying to solve a strange problem with the default help_text on a form I created to handle user signups. I first noticed the issue when I saw that the html django is inserting as the default help_text is getting escaped.

Screenshot of Issue

Instead of displaying the <ul>, which I remind you is the default help_text that django includes for password fields, it is displaying plain text.

So this is where I first noticed that must be doing something wrong. If the default form help_text is getting escaped and looking awful like that, I'm clearly making a mistake. Next I will explain what I did to try to fix this, and then will give a overview of the model, form, view, and template so you guys have something to work from.

The first solution I found online was to use the Meta class, so I did in my forms.py under the class SignUpForm: that I am modifying.

from django import forms
from django.contrib.auth.forms import UserCreationForm
from django.contrib.auth.models import User    

class SignUpForm(UserCreationForm):
        company = forms.CharField()
        city = forms.CharField()
        state = forms.CharField()
        zip = forms.IntegerField()
        address = forms.CharField()
        phone = forms.IntegerField()

        class Meta:
            model = User
            # help_text = mark_safe
            fields = ('company', 'city', 'state', 'zip', 'address', 'phone', 'username', 'email', 'password1', 'password2')
            labels = {
                'state': 'US States',
                'password1': 'passcode1',
                'password2': 'passcode2',
                'username': 'human person',
                'email': 'telegraph',
                'city': 'locality',
                'phone': "tele",
            }
            help_texts = {
                'password1': 'Something that doesnt look awful',
                'password2': 'Something else',
                'username': 'Please enter an appropriate human name.',
                'email': 'Which office?',
                'city': 'What county?',
                'phone': 'Please Include Country Code',
            }

This is where I started to realize the problem was bigger than I thought. Not only is something causing a help_text to be escaped, some of these fields accept my changes while others don't. The custom fields that I have extended the default UserCreationForm with (in this example city and phone don't display their new label or help_text, while the default fields username and email both display their inane new label and help_text. And to top it all off the password1 and password2 fields remain unchanged.

Screenshot of class Meta result

Alright, so that didn't work. What about hardcoding it right into the form? Well it turns out that mostly works, but it introduces another level of complication for me in this example, as well as feeling like bad practices. I'll explain.

Since my form is extending the default django UserCreationForm I don't actually setup the fields in my SignUpForm, they are added automatically and I use their fields in the class Meta: So in order to hardcode my way around this problem I have to add them.

from django import forms
from django.contrib.auth.forms import UserCreationForm
from django.contrib.auth.models import User
from django.utils.safestring import mark_safe

class SignUpForm(UserCreationForm):
    username = forms.CharField(help_text=mark_safe("Please enter an appropriate human name."), label='human name')
    email = forms.CharField(widget=forms.EmailInput, help_text=mark_safe('Which office?'), label='telegraph')
    password1 = forms.CharField(widget=forms.PasswordInput, help_text=mark_safe('Something that doesnt look awful'),
                                label='Passcode')
    password2 = forms.CharField(widget=forms.PasswordInput, help_text=mark_safe('Something else'), label='Passcode 2')
    company = forms.CharField(help_text=mark_safe("Please enter a company name"))
    city = forms.CharField(help_text=mark_safe('What county?'), label='locality')
    state = forms.CharField(help_text=mark_safe('Please enter the state'))
    zip = forms.IntegerField(help_text=mark_safe('Please enter a zip code.'))
    address = forms.CharField(help_text=mark_safe('Please enter an address.'))
    phone = forms.IntegerField(help_text=mark_safe('Please include country code.'), label='tele')

    class Meta:
        model = User
        fields = ('company', 'city', 'state', 'zip', 'address', 'phone', 'username', 'email', 'password1', 'password2')

So this one works, but it is really impractical and concerning as I haven't solved the root issue.

Screenshot of hardcoding result (can't post because I don't have enough rep, but trust me everything works)

So that brings us to now, I've tried a few other things, but nothing has gotten me as close to what I want as hardcoding, so I need to figure out the underlying mistake I have made.

So here is what I am working with:

models.py:

from django.db import models
from django.contrib.auth.models import User
from django.db.models.signals import post_save
from django.dispatch import receiver

class Profile(models.Model):
    username = models.OneToOneField(User, on_delete=models.CASCADE)
    company = models.TextField(max_length=500, blank=True)
    city = models.CharField(max_length=100, blank=True)
    state = models.CharField(max_length=100, blank=True)
    zip = models.CharField(max_length=5, blank=True)
    address = models.CharField(max_length=200, blank=True)
    phone = models.CharField(max_length=12, blank=True)

@receiver(post_save, sender=User)
def update_user_profile(sender, instance, created, **kwargs):
    if created:
        Profile.objects.create(user=instance)
    instance.profile.save()

forms.py (current hardcoded version):

from django import forms
from django.contrib.auth.forms import UserCreationForm
from django.contrib.auth.models import User
from django.utils.safestring import mark_safe

class SignUpForm(UserCreationForm):
    username = forms.CharField(help_text=mark_safe("Please enter an appropriate human name."), label='human name')
    email = forms.CharField(widget=forms.EmailInput, help_text=mark_safe('Which office?'), label='telegraph')
    password1 = forms.CharField(widget=forms.PasswordInput, help_text=mark_safe('Something that doesnt look awful'),
                                label='Passcode')
    password2 = forms.CharField(widget=forms.PasswordInput, help_text=mark_safe('Something else'), label='Passcode 2')
    company = forms.CharField(help_text=mark_safe("Please enter a company name"))
    city = forms.CharField(help_text=mark_safe('What county?'), label='locality')
    state = forms.CharField(help_text=mark_safe('Please enter the state'))
    zip = forms.IntegerField(help_text=mark_safe('Please enter a zip code.'))
    address = forms.CharField(help_text=mark_safe('Please enter an address.'))
    phone = forms.IntegerField(help_text=mark_safe('Please include country code.'), label='tele')

    class Meta:
        model = User
        fields = ('company', 'city', 'state', 'zip', 'address', 'phone', 'username', 'email', 'password1', 'password2')

views.py:

from django.shortcuts import render, redirect
from django.contrib.auth import login, authenticate
from apps.dashboard.forms import SignUpForm

def signup(request):
    if request.method == 'POST':
        form = SignUpForm(request.POST)
        if form.is_valid():
            user = form.save()
            user.refresh_from_db()  # load the profile instance created by the signal
            user.profile.company = form.cleaned_data.get('company')
            user.profile.city = form.cleaned_data.get('city')
            user.profile.state = form.cleaned_data.get('state')
            user.profile.zip = form.cleaned_data.get('zip')
            user.profile.address = form.cleaned_data.get('address')
            user.profile.phone = form.cleaned_data.get('phone')
            user.save()
            raw_password = form.cleaned_data.get('password1')
            user = authenticate(username=user.username, password=raw_password)
            login(request, user)
            return redirect(main)
    else:
        form = SignUpForm()
    return render(request, 'signup.html', {'form': form})

template (html):

<h2>Sign up</h2>
                    <form method="post">
                        {% csrf_token %}
                        {% for field in form %}
                            <p>
                                {{ field.label_tag }}<br>
                                {{ field }}
                                {% if field.help_text %}
                                    <small style="color: grey">{{ field.help_text }}</small>
                                {% endif %}
                                {% for error in field.errors %}
                                    <p style="color: red">{{ error }}</p>
                                {% endfor %}
                            </p>
                        {% endfor %}
                        <button type="submit">Sign up</button>
                    </form>

Answer 1

To answer the OPs original concern about the help_text being escaped:

The 'safe' filter can be used, for example...

    {% if field.help_text %}
      <small style="color: grey">{{ field.help_text|safe }}</small>
    {% endif %}

gives the list you're looking for in the rendered template.

You might want to see the SO post entitled Django template escaping for more examples of this behaviour and how to control it.

Answer 2

It looks like help_texts will only work for model fields like username and email. For other fields, you can set the help_text in the __init__ method.

class SignUpForm(UserCreationForm):
    class Meta:
        model = User
        ...
        help_texts = {
            'username': 'Please enter an appropriate human name.',
            'email': 'Which office?',
        }

    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
        super(SignUpForm, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)
        self.fields['password1'].help_text = 'Something that doesnt look awful'
        self.fields['password2'].help_text = 'Something else'

Instead of adding the profile fields to the SignUpForm, I would create a separate model form for profile

class ProfileForm(forms.ModelForm):
    class Meta:
        model = Profile
        ...

Then include both forms in your view and template.