Can't open select boxes for custom entities that have relations on other custom entities

[Qonstrukt]

I'm not sure this is a new issue, but I've noticed it now I'm trying to implement blog posts with a selectable author and category.

When editing an existing blog post it's impossible to open the select box to make another choice.
When creating a new blog post it only seems to become impossible when I've selected an image to accompany the blog post. Since it's required that might also be the reason I can't open the select boxes anymore when editing a post.

I've tried in Safari and Chrome, both trigger no JavaScript errors. So I don't really have a clue where to look for answers.

[HeyJoel]

Hi, I'm trying to replicate this issue in the SimpleSite sample project by adding a CategoryId property to the blog post data model:

public class BlogPostDataModel : ICustomEntityDataModel
{
    [MaxLength(1000)]
    [Required]
    [Display(Description = "A description for display in search results and in the details page meta description.")]
    [MultiLineText]
    public string ShortDescription { get; set; }

    [Image(MinWidth = 460, MinHeight = 460)]
    [Display(Name = "Thumbnail Image", Description = "Square image that displays against the blog in the listing page.")]
    public int ThumbnailImageAssetId { get; set; }

    [Display(Name = "Categories", Description = "Drag and drop to customize the category ordering.")]
    [CustomEntityCollection(CategoryCustomEntityDefinition.DefinitionCode, IsOrderable = true)]
    public ICollection<int> CategoryIds { get; set; }

    [Display(Name = "Category")]
    [CustomEntity(CategoryCustomEntityDefinition.DefinitionCode)]
    public int CategoryId { get; set; }
}

I can't seem to replicate the issue though, is that a simplar property definition to the one you're using?

[HeyJoel]

I wondered if having two custom entity properties might triger the error so I added an author to my definition and also marked the fields as required (although this is also inferred from the use of int or int? anyway).

public class BlogPostDataModel : ICustomEntityDataModel
{
    [MaxLength(1000)]
    [Required]
    [Display(Description = "A description for display in search results and in the details page meta description.")]
    [MultiLineText]
    public string ShortDescription { get; set; }

    [Image(MinWidth = 460, MinHeight = 460)]
    [Display(Name = "Thumbnail Image", Description = "Square image that displays against the blog in the listing page.")]
    public int ThumbnailImageAssetId { get; set; }

    [Display(Name = "Categories", Description = "Drag and drop to customize the category ordering.")]
    [CustomEntityCollection(CategoryCustomEntityDefinition.DefinitionCode, IsOrderable = true)]
    public ICollection<int> CategoryIds { get; set; }

    [Required]
    [Display(Name = "Category")]
    [CustomEntity(CategoryCustomEntityDefinition.DefinitionCode)]
    public int CategoryId { get; set; }

    [Required]
    [Display(Name = "Author")]
    [CustomEntity(AuthorCustomEntityDefinition.DefinitionCode)]
    public int AuthorId { get; set; }
}

I still don't see the error. I wonder if maybe there is a problem accessing the custom entity search api when the select box opens? You should see an XHR request to Admin/Api/custom-entity-definitions/{CustomEntityDefinitionCode}/custom-entities when you click to open the select box. Is that being triggered successfully?

Also, which version are you using? 0.3.2?

[Qonstrukt]

I'll try and make a good repro this weekend!
Apparently there's something particular that triggers the issue.
Thanks for looking into it!

[Qonstrukt]

It was such good weather this weekend that I've spent most of it in my pool. 😉
But I've checked what's happening under water, and it's doing the XHR request to retrieve custom entities, but it turns up empty.
Could this be caused by the fact that my BlogPost has AutoPublish => false and HasLocale => true, while the BlogAuthor has AutoPublish => true and HasLocale => false?

[Edit]
Ok that was actually it, I've changed both custom entities to HasLocale => true and added locales to them and now it works as it should.

It might be an idea to treat custom entities that have HasLocale => false different from localised entities that have no market specified. Because in that last case I can imagine you do't want them to appear. But in case a custom entity has no localisation possibility, they should always all be visible, for all queries that have a LocaleId specified. (I ran into this issue in my own mapping code as well for some other entities IIRC.)

[HeyJoel]

Good spot, yes locales would be the likely culprit as that's all functionality that still needs to be worked on.

What you suggest is the intended functionality, so this is a bug and I imagine it is something to do with some misbehaving auto-locale filtering that is trying to automatically filter your author based on the blog locale, but not taking into account that the author is a non-localized entity.

I'll investigate a more as part of v0.4. Is the work around acceptable for now? v0.4 is a little way off yet.

[Qonstrukt]

That's ok, this works for now. 👍

[HeyJoel]

Fixed in v0.4 release.