Django Extending or Substituting User Model Custom user model with email as primary login field.

Example

models.py :

from __future__ import unicode_literals
from django.db import models
from django.contrib.auth.models import (
        AbstractBaseUser, BaseUserManager, PermissionsMixin)
from django.utils import timezone
from django.utils.translation import ugettext_lazy as _


class UserManager(BaseUserManager):
    def _create_user(self, email,password, is_staff, is_superuser, **extra_fields):
        now = timezone.now()
        if not email:
            raise ValueError('users must have an email address')
        email = self.normalize_email(email)
        user = self.model(email = email,
                            is_staff = is_staff,
                            is_superuser = is_superuser,
                            last_login = now,
                            date_joined = now,
                            **extra_fields)
        user.set_password(password)
        user.save(using = self._db)
        return user

    def create_user(self, email, password=None, **extra_fields):
        user = self._create_user(email, password, False, False, **extra_fields)
        return user

    def create_superuser(self, email, password, **extra_fields):
        user = self._create_user(email, password, True, True, **extra_fields)
        return user

class User(AbstractBaseUser,PermissionsMixin):
    """My own custom user class"""

    email = models.EmailField(max_length=255, unique=True, db_index=True, verbose_name=_('email address'))
    date_joined = models.DateTimeField(auto_now_add=True)
    is_active = models.BooleanField(default=True)
    is_staff = models.BooleanField(default=False)

    objects = UserManager()

    USERNAME_FIELD = 'email'
    REQUIRED_FIELDS = []

    class Meta:
        verbose_name = _('user')
        verbose_name_plural = _('users')

    def get_full_name(self):
    """Return the email."""
        return self.email

    def get_short_name(self):
    """Return the email."""
        return self.email

forms.py :

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


class RegistrationForm(UserCreationForm):
    email = forms.EmailField(widget=forms.TextInput(
        attrs={'class': 'form-control','type':'text','name': 'email'}),
        label="Email")
    password1 = forms.CharField(widget=forms.PasswordInput(
        attrs={'class':'form-control','type':'password', 'name':'password1'}),
        label="Password")
    password2 = forms.CharField(widget=forms.PasswordInput(
        attrs={'class':'form-control','type':'password', 'name': 'password2'}),
        label="Password (again)")

    '''added attributes so as to customise for styling, like bootstrap'''
    class Meta:
        model = User
        fields = ['email','password1','password2']
        field_order = ['email','password1','password2']

    def clean(self):
    """
    Verifies that the values entered into the password fields match
    NOTE : errors here will appear in 'non_field_errors()'
    """
        cleaned_data = super(RegistrationForm, self).clean()
        if 'password1' in self.cleaned_data and 'password2' in self.cleaned_data:
            if self.cleaned_data['password1'] != self.cleaned_data['password2']:
                raise forms.ValidationError("Passwords don't match. Please try again!")
        return self.cleaned_data

    def save(self, commit=True):
        user = super(RegistrationForm,self).save(commit=False)
        user.set_password(self.cleaned_data['password1'])
        if commit:
            user.save()
        return user

#The save(commit=False) tells Django to save the new record, but dont commit it to the database yet

class AuthenticationForm(forms.Form): # Note: forms.Form NOT forms.ModelForm
    email = forms.EmailField(widget=forms.TextInput(
        attrs={'class': 'form-control','type':'text','name': 'email','placeholder':'Email'}), 
        label='Email')
    password = forms.CharField(widget=forms.PasswordInput(
        attrs={'class':'form-control','type':'password', 'name': 'password','placeholder':'Password'}),
        label='Password')

    class Meta:
        fields = ['email', 'password']

views.py :

from django.shortcuts import redirect, render, HttpResponse
from django.contrib.auth import login as django_login, logout as django_logout, authenticate as django_authenticate
#importing as such so that it doesn't create a confusion with our methods and django's default methods

from django.contrib.auth.decorators import login_required
from .forms import AuthenticationForm, RegistrationForm


def login(request):
    if request.method == 'POST':
        form = AuthenticationForm(data = request.POST)
        if form.is_valid():
            email = request.POST['email']
            password = request.POST['password']
            user = django_authenticate(email=email, password=password)
            if user is not None:
                if user.is_active:
                    django_login(request,user)
                    return redirect('/dashboard') #user is redirected to dashboard
    else:
        form = AuthenticationForm()

    return render(request,'login.html',{'form':form,})

def register(request):
    if request.method == 'POST':
        form = RegistrationForm(data = request.POST)
        if form.is_valid():
            user = form.save()
            u = django_authenticate(user.email = user, user.password = password)
            django_login(request,u)
            return redirect('/dashboard')
    else:
        form = RegistrationForm()

    return render(request,'register.html',{'form':form,})

def logout(request):
    django_logout(request)
    return redirect('/')

@login_required(login_url ="/")
def dashboard(request):
    return render(request, 'dashboard.html',{})

settings.py :

AUTH_USER_MODEL = 'myapp.User'

admin.py

from django.contrib import admin
from django.contrib.auth.admin import UserAdmin as BaseUserAdmin
from django.contrib.auth.models import Group
from .models import User


class UserAdmin(BaseUserAdmin):
    list_display = ('email','is_staff')
    list_filter = ('is_staff',)
    fieldsets = ((None, 
                  {'fields':('email','password')}), ('Permissions',{'fields':('is_staff',)}),)
    add_fieldsets = ((None, {'classes': ('wide',), 'fields': ('email', 'password1', 'password2')}),)
    search_fields =('email',)
    ordering = ('email',)
    filter_horizontal = ()

admin.site.register(User, UserAdmin)
admin.site.unregister(Group)