Question

First I want to say I saw a site:
https://cwiki.apache.org/WICKET/autocomplete-using-a-wicket-model.html

Still I have some problem with implementation.

Context
I have form where want to edit Order from my database.
I want to autocomplete client’s name in form and save it to database.

Problem
I can see suggestions of client names and I can choose which client’s name I’ll use.
Just when I submit form new client won’t be saved in order, in database.
I don’t know how to relate form Model with AutoCompleteTextField input.

Any ideas ?

Pseudo code of my classes:

Order{
  Long id;
  String date;
  Client client;
  Status status;
  ...
}

Client{
  Long id;
  String name;
  String nip;
  String address;
  String postcode;
  String city;
  String phone;
  String mail;
  ...
}

Status{
   Long id;
   String name;
   String value;
}

Edited:
Yes you are right.

My implementation of AbstractAutoCompleteTextField from site:

AbstractAutoCompleteRenderer autoCompleteRenderer = new AbstractAutoCompleteRenderer() {

                protected final String getTextValue(final Object object) {
                    Client client = (Client) object;
                    return client.getName();
                }

                protected final void renderChoice(final Object object, final Response response, final String criteria) {
                    response.write(getTextValue(object));
                }

            };


            // textfield
            AbstractAutoCompleteTextField<Client> name = new AbstractAutoCompleteTextField<Client>("name", new PropertyModel(order, "client"), autoCompleteRenderer) {

                protected final List<Client> getChoiceList(final String input) {
                    return clientService.findByNames(10, 0, input);
                }

                protected final String getChoiceValue(final Client choice) throws Throwable {
                    return choice.getId().toString();
                }
            };
form.add(name);

My form implementation you asked for:

form = new Form("orderForm", new CompoundPropertyModel(order)) {
            @Override
            public void onSubmit() {
                orderService.update((Order) getDefaultModelObject());
                setResponsePage(OrdersPage.class);
                // Form validation successful. Display message showing edited
                // model.
            }
        };

With this code I got: “‘Hurtownia Techniczna “ADA”‘ is not proper Client.” (translated from Polish) in feedback panel.

Answer 1

I think, that’s where things go wrong:
AbstractAutoCompleteTextField<Client> name = new AbstractAutoCompleteTextField<Client>("name", new PropertyModel(order, "client"), autoCompleteRenderer)

Rest of the answer edited to reflect the correct use case

To be specific: You’re creating a PropertyModel of your orders client value, which is a Client-Object and tie it to a TextField. To create a Client-object from the TextField, wicket needs a converter. There are lots of build-in converters but none of them is capable of converting to a custom object. Thus you’ll need to provide the converter by implementing IConverter. Since I don’t know how you store and retrieve your Client-objects I can only show you a generic example, a Locale-Converter used in one of my projects:

public class LocaleConverter implements IConverter {

    private static final long serialVersionUID = 3251433094703013493L;

    /* (non-Javadoc)
     * @see org.apache.wicket.util.convert.IConverter#convertToObject(java.lang.String, java.util.Locale)
     */
    @Override
    public Object convertToObject(String value, Locale locale) {
    Locale retValue = null;
    try {
        retValue = LocaleUtils.toLocale(value);
    } catch (IllegalArgumentException e) {
        throw (new ConversionException("" + value + " is not a valid locale.", e));
    }
    return retValue;
}

    /* (non-Javadoc)
     * @see org.apache.wicket.util.convert.IConverter#convertToString(java.lang.Object, java.util.Locale)
     */
    @Override
    public String convertToString(Object value, Locale locale) {
        return value.toString();
    }

}

Then you’ll need to register your new converter to your application. Again, this will be slightly different for you since you’ve got a different converter…

@Override
protected IConverterLocator newConverterLocator() {
    ConverterLocator newConverterLocator = (ConverterLocator) super.newConverterLocator();
    newConverterLocator.set(Locale.class, new LocaleConverter());
    return newConverterLocator;
}

This method needs to be included in your application class.