Make it easier to use a custom user model with user create/edit/account settings forms

Is your proposal related to a problem?

When a project creates a custom user model where first_name and last_name are optional, the Wagtail forms still display the fields as being required. In order to make the form fields optional, the developer must override the WAGTAIL_USER-EDIT_FORM and WAGTAIL_USER_CREATION_FORM with custom-defined models. They must also somehow override the Account Settings form for the user profile section (which I am still not clear how to do).

At the very least, the process is somewhat ambiguous, despite the available documentation:

• https://docs.wagtail.io/en/stable/advanced_topics/customisation/custom_user_models.html
• https://docs.wagtail.io/en/stable/advanced_topics/customisation/custom_account_settings.html

Describe the solution you’d like

Ideally, the forms would introspect the custom user model to determine whether the fields are required. Furthermore, it might be good to simplify the development process and just allow the user to specify a list of fields to render in the forms rather than creating three custom forms (create/edit/account settings).

Describe alternatives you’ve considered

The documentation could be improved around how to customize the user account settings form.

Additional context

We have a downstream issue where it became apparent how confusing it is to make changes to the user create and edit forms, as well as a follow-up to split the work:

• https://github.com/brylie/wagtail-social-network/issues/18
• https://github.com/brylie/wagtail-social-network/issues/27

I am also trying to customize the user account settings form to make the fields optional and finding myself at a loss as to how to proceed.

[helderco]

No, not the docs. The current wagtail.admin.forms.account.NameEmailForm would have to be adapted to support settings.WAGTAIL_USER_CUSTOM_FIELDS and django.contrib.auth.base_user.AbstractBaseUser.REQUIRED_FIELDS.

[rikva]

Almost the same problem here. Found this issue page by googling “NameEmailSettingsPanel”.

In my case the custom user model contains no name fields. I’ve managed to remove those fields from the user creation and admin forms using:

class CustomUserCreationForm(UserCreationForm):
    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
        super().__init__(*args, **kwargs)
        del self.fields["first_name"]
        del self.fields["last_name"]

Unfortunately I have not succeeded in removing them from the user account form.