Symfony2 Form : Select an entity or add a new one - forms

Question

I have an order and a client entity.
I am wondering if it's possible with the actual Symfony2 form system to create an order form which will allow to:
Select several clients from a dropdown (mix of collection and entity form type)
And to create new clients on the fly (the default way for the collection type) if not in the dropdown list.
I've seen some way to do it by creating multiple forms in the same page, but this is not the way I would like to achieve it.
Are there any better ways to do this?

Answer 1

I had a similar problem which may lead to your resolution:
I have a Category and Item relationship (Many-to-One) and I wanted to either select an existing item or create a new item.
In my Form class:
$builder->add('item', 'entity', array(
'label' => 'Item',
'class' => 'ExampleItemBundle:Item',
));
$builder->add('itemNew', new EmbedItemForm(), array(
'required' => FALSE,
'mapped' => FALSE,
'property_path' => 'item',
));
$builder->addEventListener(FormEvents::PRE_SUBMIT, function(FormEvent $event) {
$data = $event->getData();
$form = $event->getForm();
if (!empty($data['itemNew']['name'])) {
$form->remove('item');
$form->add('itemNew', new EmbedItemForm(), array(
'required' => TRUE,
'mapped' => TRUE,
'property_path' => 'item',
));
}
});

Answer 2

You can map two fields in a form to the same property using the property_path option. Then, using form events, use the submitted data to make a decision and modify the form so that only one of the fields has a mapped option that is true.

Answer 3

If I have understood, you want to create and store new clients in a Form "on fly", at the moment. I think that you have to do that using JavaScript and set an additional action in your controller.
JS -> Capture the event to add new client to you database (i.e. "Add new" button click event)
JS -> Inside this event, call via AJAX to your controller with the values of new client. (Using FOSJsRoutingBundle is easy to do)
Symfony2 -> Inside your new action, store the new client in your database.
JS -> OnSuccess event, in your AJAX call, add the new Client to your DropDownBox
(ddb.append(new element tag)
Just doing that you have your new client stored in the database and added to your dropdownbox

Answer 4

For my part i had the same kind of problem and i resolved it by creating 2 attribute in my formType;
For example, for you it would be:
customer->entity
new_customer-> collection
In your order entity file you will have to add 3 methods (getter, setter, and remover) getter and remover don't do anything but setter should call the setCustomer(c)
I'm not sure if it is the best way but it's the only way I figure it out!

Answer 5

The collection Form type allows to add and delete on the fly with allow_add and allow_delete attribute.
More informations by following these 2 links :
Official collection form field type reference
Cookbook about add and delete on the fly with collection type
If you don't like to get supplementary forms on the same page, you can integrate them in dialog boxes... But you definitely need a form to create new items...