As a followup, Ive used both approaches - although we tended to wrap the non-persisted entity inside a DomainLDM
N On Fri, Dec 7, 2012 at 1:14 PM, Nick Pratt <nbpr...@gmail.com> wrote: > 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? > >
