Generic FormBuilder class

[Toflar]

Hi Leo

One thing I already love about Contao 2.11 is that it has not only improved for users but for developers too! I guess it's way easier to develop in 2.11 than in 2.10 because we have received a bunch of new hooks and a few very cool and essential features we can work with.

One thing that still annoys me is when I have to work with forms in the front end. Don't tell me that you like working with the front end form fields and sticking it all together in a form. That's just so cumbersome - I can't even believe that I only write this ticket today. I should have done this when version 2.6 was the latest :D

I would love to see something like a FormBuilder class in the next version of Contao. It would make life 200 times easier for every developer.

Christoph has started something that tries exactly to deal with this problem but I just feel like this must be part of the core.
Have a look at the project: https://github.com/psi-4ward/Formular

Isn't this wonderful? :D

Example (slightly adjusted to my personal taste)

$dca = array
(
    'email' => array
    (
        'label'     => 'E-Mail',
        'inputType' => 'text',
        'eval'      => array('mandatory'=>true,'rgxp'=>'email')     
    ),
    'message' => array
    (
        'label'     => 'Message',
        'inputType' => 'textarea',
        'eval'      => array('rte'=>'tinyMCE')
    ),
    'submit' => array
    (
        'label'     => 'save',
        'inputType' => 'submit'
    )
);


$objForm = new FormBuilder('formId');
$objForm->setFields($dca);
$objForm->setConfig('tableless', true);
$objForm->setTemplate('myformtemplate');

if ($objForm->isSubmitted() && $objForm->validate())
{
    var_dump($objForm->getData());
}
echo $objForm->parse();

Don't you think it would be way easier for developers to use the DCA knowledge they have from the back end also in the front end and just let the FormBuilder do the magic? We could also avoid tons of errors that way.

I'm sick of rewriting code like this

foreach ($arrWidgets as $name => $objWidget)
{
    $objWidget->validate();

    if ($objWidget->hasErrors())
    {
        $doNotSubmit = true;
    }
}

over and over again.

Can I get this as a Contao Conference 2012 present? I'll bring some Swiss chocolate with me as compensation :D

[psi-4ward]

+1, what else? ;)

[kikmedia]

+1 (and, of course, swedish chocolate)

[dominikzogg]

[Serhii-DV]

+1

[christian-kolb]

+1

[lindesbs]

definitly ++

[leo-unglaub]

Hi guys,
i am having a strong fever today, so i am sorry if my english sucks today. First of all Toflar is right, forms suck as hell in the frontend. But that's not exactly contao's fault. Forms suck because there are not realy compat with the http protocol. An example:

• Render the form
• User inserts data
• Send the data to the server
• revalidate the data and in an error case render the form again and insert all right data
• redo it until the data is right.

Every step of that is a new page reload. And every page relaod is a complete seperate http session. So while designing the web and http no one thought about this. Later on they realized that they should need forms to, so they implemented it but never realy fixed the way how forms work.

The way Toflar ans Psi developed there is a good workaround for "normal" forms in a website. But sadly 90% of the forms on a website are more special that a simple form in one page. You have dynamic formular elements and forms over multiple sites. So even with this solution in the core you have the exact same problem, just out of the box.

If we realy want to fix this and do it the right way we have to improve the way forms are handled in the web. I have the following idea:

We use the normal dca to define the formular elements, but we extend the dca a little bit and also put the field dependency's right in the dca. Also we define in with step of a form a field sould be displayed. If we have that we render the formular fields empty in the frontend and instead of doing it with a simple submit button we validate every field right when the user puts the data in it and store the values with ajax in a data store (database, session, csv, ... ).

So we never have to regenerate the forms with the user data in it or have token problems or somethink like that. In my opinion it's the only right way to handle form elements better. Sienece we are on github, there is already somethink like that. If you create a repo and disable the wiki or the issues in the admin panel, all of those checkboxes and forms are ajax triggert and saved.

Every company is trying to make the web more like a native app, so this would be the next logical step. Because desktop applications simply save data directly on input.

What do you think about this? I have to get some sleep now, because duning this post i throw up once.
Sorry for all the spelling errors.

[blairwinans]

+1... And LeoU, hope you feel better! Don't you think your idea could be implemented just as easily with an extension if we had a base FormBuilder class to extend? I like your thoughts, but we have to start somewhere!

[qrczak]

+1

[qzminski]

https://github.com/qzminski/Haste/blob/master/HasteForm.php
http://pstbn.com/DuwZCEn

[FlxPeters]

+1

I often use the Formular-Class. Don't know the Class by qzminski, but its even the same Idea. Like it.

[qzminski]

Such class would be very useful as we're in framework, though I can't find a direct use of it in Contao as CMS. But still, it should be implemented.
+1

[Toflar]

I have extended Kamil's HasteForm class and added a documentation. Pretty much what I am looking for in the core now ;)

[psi-4ward]

Seems there are some implementations, perhapts we sould work a specification out?

[danielritter]

Da bin ich auch dafür! :-)

[rogerramjet]

Could it also be html5-ed by adding new form inputTypes (email,tel etc)

Ideally
'inputType' => 'email' or 'inputType' => 'tel'
would revert to text .... to become
'inputType' => 'text, if the outputFormat was 'xhtml'

[FlxPeters]

Schafft das noch den angepeilten Sprung in die Version 3?

[qzminski]

Will we see this in version 3?

[psi-4ward]

Es wäre mehr als eine Freude wenn wir so etwas in die 3 einbauen könnten.

[danielritter]

Sehr schade, wird das nicht in die 3.0.0 mitaufgenommen. :-(

[psi-4ward]

Das ganze ist ein sehr komplexes Thema und zieht auch andere Widgets und viele DataContainer Anpassungen mit sich ... von demher ist das nicht mal eben umzusetzen

[danielritter]

Ich würde es begrüssen, dies in der nächsten Contao-Version 3.3 zu sehen. :-)

[aschempp]

Just found this old issue. I think Haste\Form does solve this requirement?
https://github.com/codefog/contao-haste/blob/master/docs/Form/Form.md

[leofeyer]

I'll happily add something like this if we manage to agree on a solution (and someone prepares a pull request?).

[leofeyer]

As discussed on Mumble, we won't merge the Haste functionality. If you need the feature, simply use Haste :)

https://github.com/codefog/contao-haste/blob/master/docs/Form/Form.md