Initilialize Navigation Property when creating new Entity with Breeze

Question

I have simple Model defined as

public class Project
{
    public int Id { get; set; }

    public string Title { get; set; }

    public string Description { get; set; }

    public int StatusId { get; set; }

    public virtual Status Status { get; set; }
}

public class Status
{
    public int Id { get; set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }
}

So, currently If I try to create a new Project Entity with breeze, it initializes the navigation property "Status" with null. How can I initialize it with default value? Note that, I don't want any binding with drop down field for this field at least for create operation.

function createNewProject() {
     return manager.createEntity('Project');
}

Answer 1

You can define a custom constructor for the Project entity type and set a default StatusId value in there. The Status navigation property will be set to the relevant status entity (assuming the entity is in the breeze cache). For example:

function Project() {
    this.StatusId = desiredDefaultStatusEntityId;
}

var manager = new breeze.EntityManager('...');
manager.metadataStore.registerEntityTypeCtor('Project', Project);

Take a look at Extending entities for some more information on extending entities.