fix: Multi Select course/course run issue

[skumargupta83]

https://2u-internal.atlassian.net/browse/CATALOG-44

Unable to Enter Course and Org Data- Discovery

Description

A recent update in the Discovery is preventing users from entering information in the Courses and Authoring Organization fields. This is impacting high-priority program operations, specifically for Google Cloud initiatives that require quick turnaround. The affected user reported being unable to input necessary data in these fields and requests an urgent resolution to restore data entry capabilities

Acceptance Criteria :

The Courses and Authoring Organization fields must allow data entry without errors for all users.
No existing programs or scheduled launches should be disrupted during the patch or rollback.

[ankit-sonata]

Tests are overly “implementation-detail heavy” and may be brittle

DALAdminMixinTests asserts exact tuples and exact ordering/length of media assets. This will be fragile if upstream changes asset names/paths or admin media composition.
Prefer testing the behavioral requirement: “Select2 appears before autocomplete.js” and “required assets are included”, rather than full equality of tuples.
test_widgets.py additions are too mock-y and don’t strongly validate the real bug

Many tests patch DAL base methods and then assert shallow properties (e.g., “doesn’t crash”, “result is not None”).
Suggest focusing on 2–3 high-value tests:
optgroups preserves order of selected values (core bug),
handles missing/empty items safely,
ensures data-role="autocomplete" ends up in rendered widget attrs (if that’s truly required).

[skumargupta83]

Hi @ankit-sonata,
Thanks for pointing that out. I understand the concern about fragility with exact tuple assertions. In this case, the current approach was chosen to ensure deterministic ordering and asset inclusion during testing. While I see the value in focusing on behavioral requirements, I’d prefer to keep the existing checks for now to maintain consistency with our current test suite.

[iloveagent57]

an alternative proposed approach to this issue: #4718
but fundamentally, we have to drop DAL as a dependency, it's not django 5 compatible and appears unmaintained.

[ankit-sonata]

• Change DALAdminMixin to not inherit from ModelAdmin (make it a plain class/object)
• Remove duplicated Media CSS/JS from CourseAdmin and ProgramAdmin inner Media classes, OR remove the mixin and keep everything inline — pick one pattern
• Remove the no-op media property from SortedModelSelect2Multiple

[skumargupta83]

As discussed with @iloveagent57, I am closing PR #4714 and continuing with PR #4718. Thanks