Setting Initial Values for Django Select Fields

When initializing a forms.Select widget with a value, you need to provide just the value part (first element of the tuple) rather than the entire tuple.

For a select field, Django expects the initial value to be the actual value that should be selected, not the display label or the entire tuple.

The Issue

In your get_form_initial method, you're trying to set the initial value for the owner field as a tuple (1, 'John'), but Django's select widget expects just the value 1.

Solution

Modify your get_form_initial method to only pass the value part of the tuple:

PYTHONCopied
def get_form_initial(self, step):
    initial = self.initial_dict.get(step, {})
    if step == 'owner':
        # For a select field, only pass the value (1), not the tuple (1, 'John')
        initial['owner'] = 1  # Just the ID value
    return initial

For Database Values

When you eventually retrieve the value from the database, you'll want to do something like:

PYTHONCopied
def get_form_initial(self, step):
    initial = self.initial_dict.get(step, {})
    if step == 'owner':
        # Assuming you have a user object
        user = User.objects.get(...)  # Get your user
        initial['owner'] = user.id  # Just pass the ID
    return initial

The select field will automatically display the correct label based on the value you provide, as long as that value exists in the choices defined for the field.