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To display a form and its data, you could call getAllData on your form object and assign its returned array to a template. With it, you'll be able to generate your HTML form along with its data. if you want to display input errors, call getErrors to retrieve them and again display them as you like in your template.

However there are some template plugins in Jelix, to prevent you from doing this long and sometime boring task. They even do a lot more:

  • display each control field as described in your XML form,
  • display each control label in <label> tag to improve ergonomy and accessibility,
  • display error messages,
  • display help messages,
  • generate javascript for client-side checking before posting data,
  • valid HTML generated and good support of accessibility,
  • ids and classes on elements to ease styling.

Full automatic form display with formfull

For you in hurry, this template plugin will fully display your form. its name: formfull. With it, you won't control how each field, labels and submits are displayed. Still you can customize display of help and error messages (see further).

here are its arguments :

  • your form object
  • a selector specifying the target action
  • optional : extra url parameters (other than fields data)

Example in your controller :


    $form = jForms::get('myform');
    $tpl = new jTpl();
    $tpl->assign('form', $form);

And in your template :


   <h1>My form</h1>
   <p>Fill this form :</p>

   {formfull $form, 'mymodule~default:save'}

Labels and control fields will be displayed in a table, and submit buttons in a div below.

Customized display

There is not only formfull. Other plugins exist to control how your form is displayed and precisely in which markup your form controls are wrapped.

The first one form is the equivalent to formfull except that its a block plugin. it means that it has an end tag and should contains other plugins and markup controlling the display of your form.

Simple display

  • *formcontrols plugins loops on form controls (neither submits nor reset). It is a block plugin. Within it, ctrl_label and ctrl_control** plugins will display respectively label and field of current control. To display submit buttons or reset, use formsubmit and formreset.

Example :


  {form $form, 'mymodule~default:save'}

   <fieldset><legend>Fill : </legend>

      {formcontrols}
         <p> {ctrl_label} : {ctrl_control} </p>
      {/formcontrols}

   </fieldset>

   <div> {formreset}{formsubmit} </div>

  {/form}

Note that form fields will be displayed in the order of their declaration in your XML file. Note also that template here is totally independent of form content and could be reused with more forms.

Advanced display

One could display some controls differently than others. Just indidcate a list of control names to formcontrols plugin.


  {form $form, 'mymodule~default:save'}

   <fieldset><legend>Identity : </legend>

      {formcontrols array('lastname','firstname','address')}
         <p> {ctrl_label} : {ctrl_control} </p>
      {/formcontrols}

   </fieldset>
   <fieldset><legend>Other fields : </legend>

      {formcontrols}
         <p> {ctrl_label} : {ctrl_control} </p>
      {/formcontrols}

   </fieldset>

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

Above, we display a series of controls in a first fieldset (lastname, firstname and address) and the others in a second fieldset:formcontrols loops over controls not already displayed.

Note that ctrl_label and ctrl_control also function outside of formcontrols. In that case, you should indicate a control name.


  {form $form, 'mymodule~default:save'}

   <fieldset><legend>Identity : </legend>

        <table>
          <tr><td>{ctrl_label 'lastname'}</td><td>{ctrl_control 'lastname'}</td> </tr>
          <tr><td>{ctrl_label 'firstname'}</td><td>{ctrl_control 'firstname'}</td></tr>
        </table>

   </fieldset>
   <fieldset><legend>Other fields : </legend>

      {formcontrols}
         <p> {ctrl_label} : {ctrl_control} </p>
      {/formcontrols}

   </fieldset>

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

lastname and firstname fields are displayed precisely in a table whereas other fields are displayed with formcontrols.

Customizing display of password controls

Beware that if a password control defines a confirm field (<confirm> tag in XML) you should control either the display of password field and confirm field. the latter name is a concatenation of password control name + _confirm.

See example below:


  {form $form, 'mymodule~default:save'}
   <fieldset><legend>Account creation : </legend>
        <table>
          <tr><td>{ctrl_label 'login'}</td><td>{ctrl_control 'login'}</td> </tr>
          <tr><td>{ctrl_label 'password'}</td><td>{ctrl_control 'password'}</td></tr>
        </table>
   </fieldset>
   <fieldset><legend>Other infos : </legend>
      {formcontrols}
         <p> {ctrl_label} : {ctrl_control} </p>
      {/formcontrols}
   </fieldset>
   <div> {formsubmit} </div>
  {/form}

Confirm field will appear in the second fieldset and not near password field in the example above. To do so, just display 'password_confirm' in a row below 'password' :


   <table>
      <tr><td>{ctrl_label 'login'}</td><td>{ctrl_control 'login'}</td> </tr>
          <tr><td>{ctrl_label 'password'}</td><td>{ctrl_control 'password'}</td></tr>          <tr><td>{ctrl_label 'password_confirm'}</td><td>{ctrl_control 'password_confirm'}</td></tr>
   </table>

On the contrary, you should not take care of confirm field in formcontrols loop.

Customizing display of submit buttons

As you may recall, formsubmit template plugin displays a submit button declared in your form. But if one declares more than one submit button, formsubmit will display only the first one. In that case, use formsubmits (note the ending s). this block template loops over submit buttons :


    <ul>
    {formsubmits}
       <li>{formsubmit}</li>
    {/formsubmits}
    </ul>

Another way is to use formsubmit multiple times indicating each submit name :


<div> {formsubmit 'preview'} {formsubmit 'save'} </div>
  • *Beware : {formsubmits} loops over submit controls, not submit items** ! It is not possible to loop over submit items (see ticket #429)

Usefull CSS classes

Here is a reference of classes attributes generated by jforms (some were added in version 1.0.1).

  • jforms-table : class of <table> generated with formfull
  • jforms-submit-buttons : class of <div> generated with formfull, and containing submit/reset buttons
  • jforms-submit : class of each submit
  • jforms-reset : class of each reset
  • jforms-error-list : class of error messages list(ul) .
  • jforms-label : class of each <label>
  • jforms-required : class of each required control <label>
  • jforms-error : class of each <label> and fields whose controls are erroneous
  • jforms-value : class of <span> displaying fields value.
  • jforms-help : class of <span> containing help llinks.
  • jforms-chkbox : class of each <span> wrapping checkbox widget of a checkboxes control.
  • jforms-ctl-xxx : class of each checkbox of a checkboxes control, class of each radio of a radiobuttons control (xxx equals ref of current control).
  • jforms-radio : classof each <span> wrapping radio widget of a radiobuttons control.

Mixing jForms and AJAX response

Customizing messages display

jForms deals with two types of messages :

  • error messages generated by form checking
  • help messages accessible through interrogative point

those messages are default displayed in an alert box.

You can customize this behaviour. Transmit your own javascript messages display function to form or formfull plugins.

Error messages display

To customize display of error messages, you shall define a javascript object implementing 3 methods:

  • start, called when checking process starts.
  • addError, called when an error is found. it receives a jFormsControl argument, which contains infos about the erroneous control, and an error code. the latter equals 1 if user has not edited a required control, 2 if its content is invalid.
  • end, called when checking process ends.

You're obviously free to do whatever you need/want in those methods. As for example, you could add the error messages to an error lists ( <ul> located in your html page):


function MyErrorDecorator(){
}

MyErrorDecorator.prototype = {
    start : function(){
    },
    addError : function(control, messageType){
        var message='';
        if(messageType == 1){
            message = control.errRequired;
        }else if(messageType == 2){
            message = control.errInvalid;
        }else{
            message = "Error on '"+control.label+"' field";
        }
        var item = document.createElement("li");
        item.appendChild(document.createTextNode(message));
        document.getElementById("errors").appendChild(item);
    },
    end : function(){
    }
}

Then, declare your MyHelpDecorator object as fourth argument of form or formfull:


  {form $form, 'mymodule~default:save', array(), "MyErrorDecorator"}
   ...
  {/form}

Details about jFormsControl object passed to addError (named control above), and its properties:

  • name : control or field name
  • label : its label
  • datatype : its data type (type attribute in your XML file)
  • required : boolean, true if required
  • readonly : boolean, true if readonly
  • errInvalid : invalid error message defined in your XML file
    • errRequired : required error message defined in your XML file
  • help : help message defined in your XML file

Help messages display

As for error messages, your javascript object displaying help messages is equivalent except that only one method is required: show. show will be called with an help message to be displayed as argument.


function MyHelpDecorator(){ }

MyHelpDecorator.prototype = {
    show : function(message){
        document.getElementById("help").firstChild = document.createTextNode(message);
    }
}

Then, declare your MyHelpDecorator object as fifth argument of form or formfull:


  {form $form, 'mymodule~default:save', array(), "", "MyHelpDecorator"}
   ...
  {/form}

Note that here "" is passed as error decorator. This way, jForms will use its default errorDecorator. Of course, if you have your own, you'd better pass it as argument also.