Clarin9/Save submission immediately when a type/sponsor/author field changes

[Kasinhou]

The regression (confirmed live on both dev machines)

In v7 (dev-5), selecting a value in a dropdown that drives type-bind (e.g. the resource type) — or picking a sponsor/author autocomplete value — saved the submission immediately. I verified it live: choosing a resource type fires a PATCH .../workspaceitems/{id} right away, with no need to leave the section.

In v9 (dev-6) this does not happen — the choice is only persisted once the whole section loses focus (i.e. when you click into another section). If the user picks a type and then leaves/loses the session, the choice is lost.

Root cause

The CLARIN logic in SubmissionSectionFormComponent.onChange was not propagated in the DSpace 9 upgrade. v7 (dtq-dev) had:

[...this.typeFields.values()].some(typeValue => {
  if (typeValue.replace('_', '.') === metadata) {
    this.dispatchFormSaveAndReinitialize(typeValue, value); // -> dispatchSaveSection + reinit
    return true;
  }
});
if ([SPONSOR_METADATA_NAME, AUTHOR_METADATA_FIELD_NAME].includes(metadata)) {
  this.dispatchFormSaveAndReinitialize(metadata, value);
}

v9's onChange only kept the (disabled-by-default) autosave.metadata check — none of the type/sponsor/author handling.

Fix

Restore the immediate save in onChange for type-bind controlling fields and the sponsor/author fields.

• form-builder.service.ts — new getTypeFieldValues() accessor. In v9 the type-bind field map moved into FormBuilderService (populated from submit.type-bind.field), so the component reads the controlling field names from there instead of maintaining its own copy (as v7 did).
• section-form.component.ts — in onChange, when the changed field is a type-bind controlling field (e.g. dc.type, edm.type) or local.sponsor / dc.contributor.author, dispatch dispatchSaveSection immediately.
• form-builder-service.mock.ts, section-form.component.spec.ts — mock + tests.

Scope note — save vs. reinitialize

v7's dispatchFormSaveAndReinitialize did two things: save the section and reinitialize the form (a 20s DB-polling reinitializeForm that rebuilt the form via ngOnInit). This PR restores the save — the observed regression. The form reconfiguration on type change is already handled reactively in v9 (FormBuilderService.typeBindModelUpdates / registerTypeBindModels), so the old polling reinit is not re-added. If, after testing on a dev deploy, the author/sponsor sub-fields don't refresh with server-computed values the way they did in v7, I'll port that refresh too as a follow-up.

Testing

• tsc -p tsconfig.app.json --noEmit and tsconfig.spec.json pass (the only spec error is pre-existing in an unrelated file, server-hard-redirect.service.spec.ts).
• Added unit tests: save fires on dc.type change and on local.sponsor change; does not fire for a regular field.
• v7 behaviour confirmed live (PATCH on type selection); this change makes v9 do the same. Should be re-verified on a dev deploy.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

This PR restores DSpace 7 / CLARIN behavior in the Angular v9 submission UI by triggering an immediate section save when key “type-bind controlling” dropdowns and sponsor/author autocompletes change, preventing user selections from being lost before leaving the section.

Changes:

• Add FormBuilderService.getTypeFieldValues() accessor to expose type-bind controlling field ids from submit.type-bind.field.
• Update SubmissionSectionFormComponent.onChange to immediately dispatchSaveSection when a type-bind controlling field or sponsor/author field changes.
• Extend mocks and add unit tests verifying immediate save behavior for type-bind fields and sponsor fields.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 4 out of 4 changed files in this pull request and generated 1 comment.

File	Description
src/app/submission/sections/form/section-form.component.ts	Triggers immediate section save on type-bind controlling fields and sponsor/author changes.
src/app/submission/sections/form/section-form.component.spec.ts	Adds unit tests for the new immediate-save triggers.
src/app/shared/mocks/form-builder-service.mock.ts	Updates the FormBuilderService mock to support getTypeFieldValues().
src/app/shared/form/builder/form-builder.service.ts	Adds getTypeFieldValues() accessor for type-bind controlling fields.

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