Im looking for recommendations on how to work with Form data and a JPA/Hibernate model, specifically around creating and editing domain data.
I have a JPA backed domain model, and I want to create a page/panel/form that allows entry of a new "Foo", as well as being able to pass an existing LDM<Foo> to the Page/Panel so that I can edit it. Obviously I'd like to use an IModel for the domain object so that I dont end up serializing the DB in to the session, but at the same time, I cant use an LDM until the new entity is saved and an ID is assigned to the object. For the 'new' case, do you just serialize the domain entity in to the session, IModel<Foo> model = Model.of( new Foo() ); and let the Foo object be serialized until such time as the Foo.id is set so you can switch out the IModel ref to an LDM? Or is it best to just show the minimal number of fields required (*) to create a new Foo (accessed via PropertyModel(this, "attributeName), save it, and then set the LDM<Foo> reference in the page and then let the other form elements be shown? (This approach duplicates code - the fields in the domain object are duplicated as primitives in the Page (which get serialized in to the session) ) The edit functionality needs to allow all fields to be edited (including the fields mentioned in (*) above) - I dont want to duplicate form markup and code - once for the 'new' case and once for the 'edit' case - the 'edit' case would have a lot more fields that could be entered/edited. Are there other approaches that I'm missing, and what is the best pattern to follow here?
