How to add 2 independent lookups to a page?

Question

I am building a VF page. I'd like to have 2 lookups on the page. One for a built in Account object and the other one for a custom object Market__c.

Short of building a new object that has references to both those objects (Account and Market__c), how can I build a page that has those 2 lookups?

Answer 1

Generally, when one talks about lookups, one already has an existing sObject in mind. Suppose we have an sObject called My_Object__c with two lookups:

1. A lookup to Account called Account__c
2. A lookup to the Another_Object__c Another_Object__c

Let's write a simple VF Page that allows a user to populate both lookups. But first, let's write a simple controller:

public class TwoInputController {
    public My_Object__c myObject {get;set;}  // the My_Object__c record we're interested in working with

    public TwoInputController(){ // the Constructor for this Class
        this.myObject = new My_Object__c(); // create a new My_Object__c record to play with
        // note myObject hasn't ever been inserted
    }    
}

Now, let's write a simple VF Page that has the two desired lookups:

<apex:page controller="TwoInputController">
    <apex:form>
        <apex:pageBlock title="Check out the Lookups" columns="1">
            <apex:inputField value="{!myObject.Account__c}"/>
            <apex:inputField value="{!myObject.Another_Object__c}"
        </apex:pageBlock>
    </apex:form>
</apex:page>