Home/ Questions/Q 395079
In Process

The Archive Base Latest Questions

Editorial Team
  • 0
Asked: 2026-05-12T16:25:07+00:00

Given the following models (cut down for understanding): class Venue(models.Model): name = models.CharField(unique=True) class

  • 0

Given the following models (cut down for understanding): 

class Venue(models.Model):
    name = models.CharField(unique=True)

class Band(models.Model):
    name = models.CharField(unique=True)

class Event(models.Model):    
    name = models.CharField(max_length=50, unique=True)       
    bands = models.ManyToManyField(Band) 
    venue = models.ForeignKey(Venue)
    start = models.DateField()
    end = models.DateField()

The admin area works great for what I’m doing, but I’d like to open the site up a bit so that certain users can add new Events. For the public portions, I have several “administrative” fields on these models that I don’t want the public to see (which is easy enough to fix).

My specific problem, though, is changing the display of the ManyToMany selections when creating a new Event. Because the number of Bands possible to list for an event should not be sent along as a multiselect box, I’d like to use an AutoComplete that handles multiples (like the Tags box, here on StackOverflow!).

I have this part working, and it correctly fills in a hidden input with the Band.id’s separated by commas for a value. However, I can’t understand how to put together letting Django do the validation using the ModelForms, and somehow also validating the ‘Bands’ selection.

Ideally, I want to auto-complete like the tags here on StackOverflow, and send along the selected Bands ID’s in some kind of Delimited string – all while letting Django validate that the bands passed exist, etc, as if I left the annoying multi-select list in place.

Do I have to create my own Auto-Complete Field type for a form or model, and use that? Is there something else I’m overlooking?

I have seen some existing AutoComplete widgets, but I’d really-really-really like to use my own Autocomplete code, since it’s already set up, and some of them look a bit convoluted.

There was a lot more text/explanation here, but I cut back because I’m avoiding Wall Of Text. If I left important stuff out, let me know.

Share

Leave an answer

You must login to add an answer.

Need An Account,

1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    It’s a little hard to say without knowing exactly what your autocomplete code is doing, but as long as it is sending the ids of the bands like they would be sent with the <select>, the ModelForm should validate them as usual.

    Basically, your POST string should look like:

    name=FooBar2009&bands=1&bands=3&bands=4&venue=7&start=...

    The easiest way to do this might be to use Javascript to add (and remove) a hidden input field for each band entered with the name band and the id of the band as the value. Then, when the user submits the form, the browser will take care of posting the right stuff, and the ModelForm will validate it.

    • 0