django-autocomplete-light: comma selection using the MultipleChoiceWidget

Question

How do i manage to use a key-selection in a form using the autocomplete_light.MultipleChoiceWidget ?

I would like to select entries of a m2m field by using the comma key intead of choosing it via mouseclick. I found the related paragraph in the docs but i don't understand how to construct it.

models.py

class MyModel(models.Model):
    tag = models.ManyToManyField(Tag, blank=True, null=True)

class Tag(models.Model):
    name = models.CharField(max_length=32, unique=True)

autocomplete_light_registry.py

autocomplete_light.register(Tag,
                search_fields=['name'],
                autocomplete_js_attributes={
                                    'placeholder': 'Insert additional tags',
                                            },
                widget_js_attributes = {
                                        'max_values': 3,
                                        }
                )

forms.py

    tag = forms.ModelMultipleChoiceField(Tag.objects.all(),
    widget=autocomplete_light.MultipleChoiceWidget('TagAutocomplete'),
    required=False)

The autocompletion works fine except that you have to click on the desired tag. I'm looking for a solution how to select an entry using a key like spacebar or comma.

Answer 1

If you want entries separated by the comma caracter then you need to use an autocomplete_light.TextWidget. However, it doesn't work for relations, it will work only for CharField and the like.

MultipleChoiceWidget maintains a sane hidden select element. The select needs to contain <option> which have value=the_foreign_key. If this select was maintained by an input with a comma separated list of object titles, then a user could checkmate it by modifying a previously entered object name - not to mention that an object name change at the time of selection would checkmate the autocomplete as well.