To get everything to work as in the article you need the latest build (written 131108)

Combobox, picklist or dropdown list – many names for the same thing.

The combobox is perfect when setting references between objects – if the number of items to pick from is not too large.

When creating the viewmodel go like this (Look at the 2 last lines in the Green ViewModelClass and at the blue):

This is automated for you if you want by right clicking:

Modlr knows that “Example1” is a perfect candidate for a Combobox since it is a single link.

You get this:

Modlr suggests Example1.allinstances to be the pick list, but you are free to change it. Maybe you want to add a “->orderby(e|e.attribute1)” there.

To get the whole MVC roundtrip to work – we need to add an identity column to the PickListPresentation class.

I make sure CodeGen is checked and then generate code:

Looking at the generated code for the ViewModel VMExample2 we see this new thing:

Notice that modlr  did not only add code for Example1, it also added code for Example1_AsExternalId… And this is important for MVC.

In the View I enter this:

And I get this:

Then I change in the combo and press save:

The save method needs to do nothing special to make this happen: