How to save many to many fields by using an auto complete text box

Question

If I have two models like

class Author(models.Model):
    name = models.CharField(max_length=100)
    title = models.CharField(max_length=3, choices=TITLE_CHOICES)
    birth_date = models.DateField(blank=True, null=True)

    def __unicode__(self):
        return self.name

class Book(models.Model):
    name = models.CharField(max_length=100)
    authors = models.ManyToManyField(Author)

I can render the book form using a model form like this

class BookForm(ModelForm):
    class Meta:
        model = Book

        widgets = {
            'authors' : TextInput()
        }

The authors fields is now rendered as a text box and I want to use an auto complete (where I can enter multiple authors) text box to populate the field.

I am having a hard time to understand how I can save the authors in view function? I am thinking of using a hidden field to record all the author id's but I am having a hard time figuring out how to save it on the postback.

Answer 1

http://djangosnippets.org/snippets/1365/
http://code.google.com/p/django-ajax-selects/