jForms generators - Jelix 1.6 Manual

The page corresponding to the latest stable release can be seen in the Jelix 1.8 Manual

− Table of content

- widget plugin
- generators plugin

As noted in display jforms chapter, you can select which plugin will generate forms content (in HTML, javascript and so on..) sent to clients.

Note: here we talk about new type of plugins of Jelix 1.5. Read the manual of Jelix 1.4 to know about older plugins.

You have two kind of plugins: those that build a whole form, generators, and the plugins for the 'html' generator, to generate only a control.

The generator provided by Jelix is a plugin, that is itself extensible and use other type of plugins, "formwidget", to generate controls.

A "formwidget" plugin generates the code of a specific control. You can provide your own formwidget plugin and use it for a particular control, if you want to have a different HTML construction.

A "formwidget" should follow the jelix\forms\HtmlWidget\WidgetInterface interface, and so, it should provide these methods:

getId(): return the id of the HTML element
getName(): return the name of the HTML element
getValue(): return the value of the HTML field
outputMetaContent($resp): add the CSS and javascript link
outputHelp(): displays the help of the form field
outputLabel(): displays the form field label
outputControl(): displays the form field itself
setAttributes($attributes): set attributes to add on the HTML element

The plugin could inherits from the jelix\forms\HtmlWidget\WidgetBase class so only few methods are needed to be implemented.

The plugin should have a name. It should be stored into a file plugins/formwidget/{name}/{name}.formwidget.php.

See all existing plugins into lib/jelix/plugins/formwidget/ to know more about how it should be implemented.

generators plugin ¶

To create a such plugin, you should of course pick a name, say "moreforms". Then:

Create a moreforms directory in a jforms plugins repository.
Create a moreforms.jformsbuilder.php
In it, declare a moreformsJformsBuilder class inheriting from jFormsBuilderBase

moreformsJformsBuilder should implement following list of methods. Those display form parts and don't return any value. They are called through jForms template plugins.

After each modification of your generator, don't forget to clear your temp directory (by using the command cleartemp for example).


    /**
     * output the header content of the form
     */
    abstract public function outputHeader();

    /**
     * output the footer content of the form
     */
    abstract public function outputFooter();

    /**
     * displays all the form. outputMetaContent, outputHeader and outputFooters are also called 
     * @since 1.1
     */
    abstract public function outputAllControls();

    /**
     * displays the content corresponding of the given control
     * @param jFormsControl $ctrl the control to display
     * @param array $attributes  attribute to add on the generated code (html attributes for example)
     */
    abstract public function outputControl($ctrl, $attributes=array());

    /**
     * displays the label corresponding of the given control
     * @param jFormsControl $ctrl the control to display
     */
    abstract public function outputControlLabel($ctrl);

outputMetaContent() ¶

Use the controller response object to specify CSS stylesheets, javascript files to be included in the final response. Example:


   public function outputMetaContent($t) {

        $resp = jApp::coord()->response;
        if ($resp === null) {
            return;
        }
        // if files are located in jelix folder
        $www = jApp::config()->urlengine['jelixWWWPath'];
        // or in your app www folder        
        $www = jApp::config()->urlengine['basePath'];

        $resp->addJSLink($www.'js/file.js');
        $resp->addCSSLink($www.'design/file.css');
   }

This method is the first called.

outputHeader() ¶

This one generates tags declaring your form and other useful form contents. OutputHeader opens a <form> tag, optionally displays error messages, generates hidden fields and adds some javascript.

outputFooter() ¶

This is the last method called by template plugins. As for HTML, outputFooter closes the form tags </form> and adds some javascript.

outputAllControls() ¶

This one is called by formfull template plugin. It has to generate all controls (apart of those generated by outputHeader and outputFooter).

outputControlLabel() ¶

Called in {form} template block for fields labels, it generates labels tags.

As argument, it receives a jFormsControl object defining the control associated.

outputControl() ¶

Called in {form} template block for controls, it generates control tags.