In suiteCRM how does one get about changing the Address field country and state text fields to be dropdowns? - sugarcrm

Question

I am developing a custom suite CRM module however I find the Address field limiting since it uses text fields for country and state fields.
I have tried researching it by following instructions on this site:
https://johndopenotes.wordpress.com/2013/01/08/sugarcrm-change-address-state-and-country-to-dropdown-menu/
However I am stuck at step 5 since my custom module does not have a metadata directory???
Go to /custom/modules/Leads/metadata and update editviewdefs.php. Look for this code:
array (
'name' => 'primary_address_street',
'hideLabel' => true,
'type' => 'Address',
'displayParams' =>
array (
'key' => 'primary',
'rows' => 2,
'cols' => 30,
'maxlength' => 150,
),
),
1 =>
array (
'name' => 'alt_address_street',
'hideLabel' => true,
'type' => 'Address',
'displayParams' =>
array (
'key' => 'alt',
'copy' => 'primary',
'rows' => 2,
'cols' => 30,
'maxlength' => 150,
),
),
and update the type from Address to CustomAddress
array (
'name' => 'primary_address_street',
'hideLabel' => true,
'type' => 'CustomAddress',
'displayParams' =>
array (
'key' => 'primary',
'rows' => 2,
'cols' => 30,
'maxlength' => 150,
),
),
1 =>
array (
'name' => 'alt_address_street',
'hideLabel' => true,
'type' => 'CustomAddress',
'displayParams' =>
array (
'key' => 'alt',
'copy' => 'primary',
'rows' => 2,
'cols' => 30,
'maxlength' => 150,
),
),
Can someone please give me a pointer as to how I can make address field in my custom module dropdowns instead of text fields?

Answer 1

Instead to choosing Address type field you can use combination of multiple fileds. For an example for street address you can use (datatype:textField)
Similarly for city you can add a text filed. Now for state and country you can use dropdown and add dropdown list as per your need
And for zipcode you can use integer / text field as per your requirement.
Now to make state dependend to country you can use custom javascript / jquery in following way
Add a reference to the javascript file you are going to add at the
end of custom/modules/<>/metadata/[edit|detail]viewdefs.php
$viewdefs['Opportunities']['EditView']['templateMeta']['includes'] = array ( array ( 'file' => 'path/to/file/filename.js', ), );
Add the javascript file you want to include into the location you
referenced above.
Quick Repair from the admin section, then browser refresh

Answer 2

It should just be a case of updating the vardefs for the field so the type is set to enum and the options point to your dropdown list. Then run a repair and rebuild.
The guide you've linked to looks like it is creating a new field type, which I think is overkill. It's also using Sugar logic to make the 2 lists dependent, but I'm not sure that's a feature in SuiteCRM.