Issue with how the django_easy_select2 library is initialized or bound to the HTML element that I'm replacing with htmx

Question

I've successfully used htmx to handle a AJAX call to replace part of an django template form. Please see the question I posted on this here Django and HTMX for dynamically updating dropdown list in form.field . But, the form element being replaced is a multiple drop down list, which uses the django_easy_select2 library to render the drop down list nicely, and when replaced by htmx it isn't including any of the extra html elements built by django_easy_select2. Grateful if someone could explain how I solve this.

A good option would seem to be to reinitialize the django_easy_select2 library after the htmx replacement occurs. Grateful for advice on how I do this.

Answer 1

I haven't used django_easy_select2 but I have used HTMX together with django-select2 and other javascript based plugins and what you have to do is call the initialization scripts after the DOM has settled:

method 1:

Let's say this is your partial html that gets rendered for the HTMX response:

<div>
{{form}}
</div>

{{form.media}} # also add the initialization scripts (they're usually in form.media).

method 2:

Add this script at the end of your body (not partials, the event should be added when the page loads).

<script type="text/javascript">
    document.body.addEventListener('htmx:afterSettle', async (event) => {
        // Call the initialization scripts here so they run when the DOM has settled after a swap
        // In my case this was:
        $('.django-select2').djangoSelect2()
    });
</script>