crucial

I've posted the first of many django apps:

http://code.google.com/p/django-ajax-selects/

Initial version

This is working for foreign key fields and many to many fields.

Improvements still to come.

Requirements

Django 1.0 +
jquery 1.26 +
Autocomplete - jQuery plugin 1.0.2 http://bassistance.de/jquery-plugins/jquery-plugin-autocomplete/
jquery.autocomplete.css
Usage

install as a normal django app

INSTALLED_APPS = (
...,
'ajax_select'
)
There is a single view for ajax lookups that uses named channels and lookup objects that do the searching and formatting work.

peoplez/managers.py

from peoplez.models import Contact
from django.db.models import Q

class ContactLookup(object):

def get_query(self,q,request):<br />        """ perform the search.  you have access to the request in case you need to check user permissions """<br />        return Contact.objects.filter(Q(name__startswith=q) | Q(fname__startswith=q) | Q(lname__startswith=q) | Q(email__icontains=q))<br />    <br />    def format_item(self,contact):<br />        """ simple display of an object """<br />        return unicode(contact)

def format_result(self,contact):<br />        """ a more verbose display, used in the search results display.  may contain html and multi-lines """<br />        return u"%s %s %s (%s)" % (contact.fname, contact.lname,contact.name,contact.email)

def get_objects(self,ids):<br />        """ given a list of ids, return the objects ordered as you would like them on the admin page """<br />        return Contact.objects.filter(pk__in=ids).order_by('name','lname')<br />in your settings.py define the channels in use on the site:

AJAX_LOOKUP_CHANNELS = {
'contact' : ('peoplez.managers', 'ContactLookup'),
'country' : ('placez.lookups', 'CountryLookup'),
'label' : ('music.lookups','LabelLookup'),
'release' : ('music.lookups','ReleaseLookup'),
}
this specifies to look for ContactLookup in the peoplez.managers module

include the lookup url in your site's urls.py

(r'^ajax/', include('ajax_select.urls')),<br />or insert it directly (there is only one):

url(r'^ajax_lookup/(?P<channel>[-\w]+)$',<br />        'ajax_select.views.ajax_lookup',<br />        name = 'ajax_lookup'<br />    )<br />for an example model:

class ContactMailing(AbsMail):
""" can mail to contacts """
contacts = models.ManyToManyField(Contact,blank=True)
...
in the admin.py for this app:

class ContactMailingAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
# specify a form
form = ContactMailingForm

admin.site.register(ContactMailing,ContactMailingAdmin)
in forms.py for that app:

from ajax_select.fields import AutoCompleteSelectMultipleField
class ContactMailingForm(models.ModelForm):

# specify to use the field and specify the named channel that it uses<br />    contacts = AutoCompleteSelectMultipleField('contact', required=False)<br />Note that the form can be used outside of the django admin.

make sure that

jquery 1.26 +
Autocomplete - jQuery plugin 1.0.2
jquery.autocomplete.css
appear on the page.

Foreign Key Fields
Foreign keys use AutoCompleteSelectField and use the same lookup channel

from ajax_select.fields import AutoCompleteSelectField

contact = AutoCompleteSelectField('contact')
customizing

select_template is used to choose a template to render the interface:

autocompleteselect_{channel}.html or autocompleteselect.html
blocks will be defined later that will allow you to inherit from the main widget template

Improvements

including of media will be improved to use field/admin's Media but it would be preferable if that can be integrated with django-compress
a factory to generate simple lookup channels
a factory to generate a form for an admin class if you don't want to write a form class
ajax niceness (searching...)
integration with (+) add item via popup in django-admin
help_text still not showing
let channel customize the interface's help text
make css tags work with jquery-ui