New Drupal Module: Existing Values Autocomplete Widget

Author:
Art Williams
Art WilliamsPrincipal / Chief Information Officer
Existing Values Autocomplete Widget

Existing Values Autocomplete WidgetProviding the content creator a field with a list of values to choose from is a common requirement when building a Drupal site. It’s also something that can be achieved in a variety of ways, each having pros and cons to the approach. Texas Creative’s web team has developed a module that we believe fills a missing gap in this type of field called Existing Values Autocomplete Widget.

In the following analysis, we will discuss each possible approach, the use case for it, along with an example. The final approach includes using our new module. 

1. Taxonomy Term Field

The approach with the most flexibility and functionality, but also the most overhead and potentially unwanted “features”, is to create a new Taxonomy Vocabulary and use a Taxonomy Term Field to allow the content creator to choose from the list. The user can create/manage terms easily. However, each term will have its own “page” that displays every node that uses that term. If you don’t want that, it can be dealt with using the rabbit hole module among others, but it will have to be dealt with on some level. There is also some overhead added to the system in terms of additional code and additional database calls/joins for this extra layer of functionality.

Criteria:  If your use-case can leverage the “relationship” of the taxonomy term and the display pages that are created, then this is the best choice.

Example: Company Departments: They may change in the future and you may have an interest in associating many content types to the departments in order to aggregate them on a single landing page for that department.

2. Text Field (List) with Allowed Values

A simpler approach, with some serious limitations, is to provide a simple text field (list) and populate the ‘allowed values’ with all possible values needed. The advantage here is the simplicity of setup, assuming you have a small well-defined list. In most cases, the content creator will not be given permission to add/change allowed values, so the developer will need to facilitate any future changes to this field. Additionally, it becomes difficult to “remove” options since there are values assigned to them already so Drupal will not allow those deletions. 

Criteria: If the list of values is small and unlikely to be changed, and you are not interested in the “relationship” aspect of taxonomies, then this is a good option.

Example: Outcome Status like (Sold, Returned, In Inventory, Backorder): This is a small, rarely changing list so the additional hassle of managing the list is not a concern and we would not be interested in the “relationship” to this value. You would only be likely to display this status or have it as a filter option on a list of nodes both of which are possible with the text field.

3. Text Field with Existing Values Autocomplete Widget

At Texas Creative, we often find ourselves in the middle of these two approaches. We want a simple field without all of the taxonomy overhead and complexity, but the list of values is not known or finite, so the client needs to be able to add new ones easily. The Existing Values Autocomplete Widget was born to fill this gap by providing a way to pull any value previously entered in the text field as an option on the fly. This module creates a new field widget for text fields with autocomplete suggestions using previously entered values.

Drupal 8 Render API allows for an autocomplete callback to be registered on a render array’s element. Then the Render API handles all the AJAX. The module provides a controller, as the autocomplete callback, responsible for returning the autocomplete suggestions to the field widget.

Criteria: If the values are unknown or unlimited, and you’d like to reduce most of the duplication of similar values, then this approach finds a happy medium.

Example: Park Amenities: The values of this field could vary widely across the parks but it would be helpful to use the same wording for similar amenities such as Playground, Paddling Trails, Disc Golf, etc.

Instructions for Using the Existing Values Autocomplete Widget

  1. Install & enable module per usual process.
  2. Visit any content type 'Manage Form Display' page.
  3. Change "Textfield" widget to "Autocomplete: existing values".
  4. Configure how many suggestions to show in the widget configuration. (default: 15)
  5. Enter values in the field and they will become suggestions next time.

Advice that is often given in the Drupal community is that you should get involved by “scratching your own itch”, meaning solve the problems and use cases that bother you.  An important part of that is to then share your solutions. It is inevitable that someone else has the same “itch” and may not even realize it until they see your solution. The Existing Values Autocomplete Widget is the most recent example of this for the Texas Creative web team.  We like solving problems from the simple to the complex. We also like knowing when our solutions helped someone else. Please comment below if you find this post or module useful, and join us in the issue queue with any bugs or feature requests. You can also see our team’s Drupal contributions on our organization page.

For more Drupal knowledge from the Texas Creative web team check out our other blog posts on web development topics.