dijit.form.ComboBox with complex drop-down menu - dojo

Question

I'd like to create a more interesting blog autocomplete widget; one that will return a drop-down menu that will contain: (a) title, (b) keywords, (d) date. E.g.:
|======================
| inte|
|======================
| Interesting Title
| Tags: title, bar
| Date: Jun, 12 2010
|----------------------
| Interner Guide
| Tags: guide
| Date: Aug, 12 2010
|----------------------
| ...
|======================
I. First Option
One way of achieving this is by overriding the _createOption of the _ComboBoxMenu like this:
dojo.declare("SearchBox", dijit.form.ComboBox, {
postMixInProperties: function() {
this._popupWidget = new SearchBoxMenu();
this.inherited(arguments);
}
});
dojo.declare("SearchBoxMenu", dijit.form._ComboBoxMenu, {
_createOption: function(item, labelFunc) {
var menuitem = dojo.doc.createElement("li");
menuitem.innerHTML = [
"<ul>",
"<li>", store.getValue(item, "title"), "</li>",
"<li>Tags: ", store.getValue(item, "tags"), "</li>",
"<li>Date: ", store.getValue(item, "date"), "</li>"
"</ul>"
].join("")
return menuitem;
}
});
But I'm (a) overriding a private class, then (b) it's private method, so if the method signature changes for these classes in dojo 1.6 -- I'll be in trouble. This makes this way a bit undesirable.
II. Second Option
The second way will not break if the private API signature changes, but does mix data with presentation:
var myStore = new dojo.data.ItemFileReadStore({
data: {
identifier: "title",
items: [
{title: "Interesting Title",
tags: "title, bar",
date: "Jun, 12 2010",
label: "<ul><li>Interesting Title</li>"
+ "<li>Tags: title, bar</li>"
+ "<li>Date: Jun, 12 2010</li></ul>"}
]
}
});
var box = new dijit.form.ComboBox({
store: myStore,
searchAttr: "title",
labelAttr: "label",
labelType: "html"
}, "ipt1"),
The labelAttr tells the ComboBox to look at the dataStore's items[].label and use that in the drop-down menu. The "labelType" tells the _ComboBoxMenu to include it as HTML instead of as a simple string. As I've mentioned above, one disadvantage of this method is that it mixes data with presentation.
Question: Thus, I have two options, but neither is perfect. Is there a better way? If not -- which one do you recommend?

Answer 1

The answer was described in the Rich Text Test on the "autoComplete" test page: http://archive.dojotoolkit.org/nightly/dojotoolkit/dijit/tests/form/_autoComplete.html#richtextest.
The only thing that makes me feel a bit better is that I've tried this solution before, and it didn't work with dojo 1.5. It does work on the nightlies and, hopefully, with all subsequent stable builds. It's a combination of option 2 and a label-view function:
var myStore = new dojo.data.ItemFileReadStore({
data: {
identifier: "title",
items: [
{title: "Interesting Title",
tags: "title, bar",
date: "Jun, 12 2010"}
]
}
});
var box = new dijit.form.ComboBox({
autoComplete: false,
selectOnClick: true,
store: myStore,
searchAttr: "title",
labelType: "html",
labelFunc: function(item, store) {
return [
"<ul>",
"<li>", store.getValue(item, "title"), "</li>",
"<li>Tags:", store.getValue(item, "tags"), "</li>",
"<li>Date:", store.getValue(item, "date"), "</li>",
"</ul>"
].join("")
}
}, "ipt1");

Answer 2

I don't think there is a better way.
Personally I'd go for option 1 and keep a record of all the private APIs you're using and should check for on upgrade. Better yet, provide a patch for hooking in your own popup widget and submit it, making sure the next version has the change you want to see in it :)