SharePoint 2013 KnockoutJS Lookup columns

Question

I have a basic knockoutjs project loading data from a SharePoint 2013 list scenario. Getting data and displaying data is easy, the problem that I'm running into is on the edit mode displaying the proper control. Everything should not be a textbox. This means the people picker control to dropdownmenus to calendar controls.

MSFT has some pretty good documentation on using the client side people picker control here"http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/jj713593.aspx

The problem that I have is calling this control inside my viewmodel.

Setting the value of the control doesn't look difficult courtesy of this blog post: http://www.sharepointcolumn.com/sp2013-setting-people-picker-value-in-newform-aspx/

I attempted to looking into computed values, but that doesn't seem to work. Does anyone have a blog post that I skipped over? The closest related post that I can find: http://yetanothersharepointblog.wordpress.com/2012/12/11/working-with-sharepoint-lookup-columns-in-knockout-js/

Lastly since it seems that I'm the only one doing this, does anyone think that I should not be reinventing the wheel with my forms and should just link each item to the appropriate SharePoint list item in edit or display view? I suppose that would be easier.

Answer 1

From a SharePoint Professional to another, I would highly recommend you to do that. Just redirect the user to the item edit/display item page an let SharePoint take the leash of how to handle UI form elements.

Because, assume that you implement your custom form, what if the user decides to add one more site column to the list? Will you update your code to support another field?

From my personal experience with the beast I've come to the conclusion that structural implementation over already existent functionality tends to go wrong.

Also, if you have some kind of listing of items custom made and you want to provide editing, try to do something opening a pretty SP.UI.ModalDialog, its elegant and you use the sharepoint to do the work for you.

But it's just an advise.