Select(2) for grouped options

This is just something I thought might come up for others but didn’t see a pre-made option available.

I often have options that apply to a model that need to be grouped to avoid confusion.

For example, a Contact might belongTo a Subcategory, which in turn belongTo’s a Category. Frequently, these subcategories have similar names making it impossible to identify which category they represent.

A field I find myself using regularly is a grouped select2 list, which needs to query the top level model (ie Category), and then display it’s relations (ie Subcategory) as the actual options in <optgroup>s…

I’m absolutely certain other’s might have a better way to implement this but this was how I did it for reference:

Setup:

	$this->crud->addField([
                         'name'  => 'subcategory_id', 
                         'label' => "Subcategory",
		         'type'  => 'select2_grouped', 
                         'entity' => 'subcategory', // Child model entity related to active model (belongsTo) (as per normal use)
                         'attribute' => 'title', // Attribute on child model to use as option label
		         'model' => 'App\Models\Category',  // Parent model
                         'group_label_attribute' => 'title',     // Attribute from parent model to use as optgroup label
                         'group_entity' => 'subcategories' // Child entity from perspective of parent model used as the list <options> (hasMany)
                     ]);

View:

// -- /resoruces/views/vendor/backpack/crud/fields/select2_grouped.blade.php
// -- Beginning and end of standard select2 option clipped...
<select
        name="{{ $field['name'] }}"
        @include('crud::inc.field_attributes', ['default_class' =>  'form-control select2'])
        >

            @if ($entity_model::isColumnNullable($field['name']))
                <option value="">-</option>
            @endif
             
            @if (isset($field['model']) && isset($field['group_entity']))
                @foreach ($field['model']::with($field['group_entity'])->get() as $connected_entity_entry)
                    <optgroup label="{{ $connected_entity_entry->{$field['group_label_attribute']} }}">
                        @foreach ($connected_entity_entry->{$field['group_entity']} as $subconnected_entity_entry)
                            <option value="{{ $subconnected_entity_entry->getKey() }}"
                                @if ( ( old($field['name']) && old($field['name']) == $subconnected_entity_entry->getKey() ) || (isset($field['value']) && $subconnected_entity_entry->getKey()==$field['value']))
                                     selected
                                @endif
                            >{{ $subconnected_entity_entry->{$field['attribute']} }}</option>
                        @endforeach
                    </optgroup>
                @endforeach
            @endif
    </select>

Example:

[tabacitu]

Hi @samsebastian , @drmmr763 , @AbbyJanke ,

On second thought, I think @drmmr763 makes a very good point. From that point of view, we should provide support for optgroup - it is part of the HTML standard.

I’ve just created two new fields types for this - select_grouped and select2_grouped. Their definition is a little different from yours @samsebastian , since they first get the Category, then Elements for each category. But the result should be the same - options grouped by another entity.

Let me know what you think here: https://github.com/Laravel-Backpack/CRUD/pull/1688 Will be released as part of the 3.5 update - later this week.

Cheers! Thanks for the feedback.

[pxpm]

Hello @elenadanevska

I’v just added: https://github.com/Laravel-Backpack/ideas/issues/202

I think it’s something usefull to have. I think the main differences in the select is that the name that needs to be: selectName[], and select needs the multiple attribute defined.

If you in the meanwhile code a solution for this and are willing to share with others, please open a Pull Request, and we will review it.

Thanks, Pedro