Label for related fields should use related model verbose_name attribute for field

[Leandro de Souza]

Django 5.1 has added support for referencing related fields directly from the list_display/fieldsets option on the django.contrib.admin.options.ModelAdmin class (#10743).
However, when referencing this field, the label generated for this field is using the attribute name instead of the verbose_name defined on that field.
Using the verbose_name would make much more sense and would be a great addition.

Example:

# books/models.py
from django.db import models

class Author(models.Model):
  name = models.CharField(verbose_name="Name of the author")


class Book(models.Model):
  author = models.ForeignKey(to=Author, on_delete=models.PROTECT)



# books/admin.py

from django.contrib import admin
from .models import Book

@admin.register(Book)
class BookAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
  list_display = ("author__name",)

The above code would display on the change_list page: "Author name" instead of the verbose_name defined at the author.name field.
The same applies to fieldsets used on the change page.

[Leandro de Souza]

Just in time..
I've managed to create a monkey patched version with the changes required for this to work.
I would be happy to submit a patch for this ticket if desired, this can also include supporting casting related fields to their "choice" human readable value using .get_fieldname_display

[Natalia Bidart]

Hello Leandro de Souza, thank you for creating this ticket. I think this is a good improvement, I'm looking forward to your contribution.

[Natalia Bidart]

Fix should be along these lines:

django/contrib/admin/utils.py

@@ -394 +394 @@
 
             if hasattr(attr, "short_description"):
                 label = attr.short_description
+            elif hasattr(attr, "verbose_name"):
+                label = attr.verbose_name
             elif (
                 isinstance(attr, property)
                 and hasattr(attr, "fget")

[Leandro de Souza]

​PR

[Leandro de Souza]

Just opened the PR, probably will break some tests, will fix them some time soon.

[Leandro de Souza]

Looks like all tests that should've run are ok. Let me know if any changes are needed