form-builder (for CakePHP)

This package is a wrapper for CakePHP FormHelper. Compatible with CakePHP 3.x and 4.x.

How to install

Execute composer require bancer/form-builder or composer require bancer/form-builder --update-no-dev to install by composer.

Why and when to use

Use this package if you would like to get a different interface for constructing HTML forms than provided by CakePHP's FormHelper class. This package wraps FormHelper class and provides builder methods instead of FormHelper method options. It does not change the behavior of FormHelper. In addition it provides methods for some common HTML element attributes. It is expected to make the construction of forms easier and less error prone due to fewer number of magic strings necessary to build form elements. An extra benefit is code autocompletion in any IDE or editor that supports autocompletion of PHP code.

How to use

Example in the view file:

use Bancer\FormBuilder\FormBuilder;
...
$FormBuilder = new FormBuilder($this->Form); // where $this->Form is an instance of FormHelper
$FormBuilder->newForm($user)
    ->method('post')
    ->url(['controller' => 'users', 'action' => 'edit'])
    ->encoding('UTF-8')
    ->id('edit-user')
    ->classes('narrow-form');
echo $FormBuilder->newControl('User.email')
    ->label(__('Email'))
    ->readOnly()
    ->size(50)
    ->attribute('data-validated', 1)
    ->attribute('oninvalid', 'alert('Invalid email')');
echo $FormBuilder->newControl('User.password')
    ->label(__('Password'))
    ->type('password')
    ->size(30)
    ->minLength(8)
    ->maxLength(30)
    ->required(false);
echo $FormBuilder->newSubmit(__('Submit'));
echo $FormBuilder->end();