Override binary field mode
Last updated
Last updated
This is the official documentation of the forestadmin-agent-django and forestadmin-agent-flask Python agents.
In Forest Admin, binary fields are not handled specially: they are included in the payloads that transit between your agent and the UI like any other field. To achieve that they are either encoded using the data-URI scheme ↗ or in hexadecimal representation ↗.
Binary fields in databases are usually either used to store compact data (like a hash or an identifier) or large data (like an image).
To be able to handle both cases, Forest Admin has two distinct modes available.
hex mode
datauri mode
Best suited for
Compact data (identifiers, hashes, ...)
Large data (files)
Description
The binary data is encoded in hexadecimal representation.
The binary data is encoded using the data-URI scheme.
Example
0xdeadbeef
data:image/png;base64,...
UI widget
Textual representation
File picker / viewer
Default mode
Field is used as either a primary or foreign key
Field is not used as either a primary or foreign key
Note that as both modes result in a textual representation of the binary data, changing the mode will not affect the widget used in the UI.
You will need to update the widget manually using the UI customization ↗ feature.
The hexadecimal mode is suitable for all data that you would not save in a file.
It is the default mode for all binary fields that are used as either a primary or foreign key.
If you want to use the hexadecimal mode for another field, use the replace_field_binary_mode method:
The data-URI mode is suitable for all data that you would save in a file (images, PDFs, ...).
When using that mode, you will be able to use both the File Viewer ↗ and the File Picker ↗ widgets in the UI to respectively preview and upload files.
If the automatic detection based on the field type is not working for you, you can force the datauri mode using the replace_field_binary_mode method as so:
