display.gtw

~~LANG:FR@frman:jforms/affichage~~

To display a form and its data, you could call @@M@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 @@M@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 sometimes boring task. They even do a lot more:
 
  * display each control field as described in your XML form,
  * display each control label in @@E@<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 a 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, in the order:

   * your form object
   * a selector specifying the target action
   * optional:
      * an array containing extra url parameters (other than fields data)
      * the name of the builder ('html' is the only provided builder)
      * an array containing options for the builder

Example in your controller :

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

And in your template :

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

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

</code>

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

Note: because of some limitations of the plugin formfull and the template
engine, don't use the plugin inside a loop, where the variable passed to the
plugin is generated by the loop (typically, in a foreach). In this case, JS and
CSS files won't be loaded in the page. A solution is to indicate yourself all
CSS and JS files needed by your form with the meta_html plugin.

===== 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. Arguments for @@form@@ are : 

   * your form object
   * a selector specifying the target action
   * optional:
      * an array containing extra url parameters (other than fields data)
      * the name of the builder ('html' for example)
      * an array containing options for the builder


Note: As for the formfull plugin, there are some limitations in the plugin form
and the template engine, so don't use the plugin inside a loop, where the
variable passed to the plugin is generated by the loop (typically, in a
foreach). In this case, JS and CSS files won't be loaded in the page. A solution
is to indicate yourself all CSS and JS files needed by your form with the meta_html plugin.


==== 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:

<code html>
  {form $form, 'mymodule~default:save'}

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

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

   </fieldset>

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

  {/form}
</code>

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 ====

Some controls need to be displayed differently. To achieve this, you can use
@@ifctrl@@ inside @@formcontrols@@. Its argument is a list of control names. The
code below adds a class on 'name' and 'firstname' controls only: 

<code html>
  {form $form, 'mymodule~default:save'}

   <fieldset><legend>Your identtity : </legend>

      {formcontrols}            
         <p {ifctrl 'name', 'firstname'}class="help-needed"{/ifctrl}> {ctrl_label} : {ctrl_control} </p>
         <p {ifctrl 'address'}class="address"{/ifctrl}> {ctrl_label} : {ctrl_control} </p>
      {/formcontrols}

   </fieldset>
</code>


Or indicate a list of control names to @@formcontrols@@ plugin. It will loop only on those controls. 

<code html>
  {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}
</code>

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.

<code html>
  {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}
</code>

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

=== Custom attributes ===

You can add some html attributes on the HTML element generated with
@@ctrl_control@@. To do it, add a second parameter to the @@ctrl_control@@ tag:
it should be an array @@('attribute name'=>'attribute value')@@. Give @@L@""@@
as first parameter when @@ctrl_control@@ is used inside a @@formcontrols@@ loop.

Note: on other generator than 'html', this array can be an array of other
type of informations.

==== Customizing display of password controls ====

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

See example below:

<code html>
  {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}
</code>

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' :

<code html>
   <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>
</code>

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:

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

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

<code html>
<div> {formsubmit 'preview'} {formsubmit 'save'} </div>
</code>

**Beware** : @@{formsubmits}@@ loops over submit **controls**, not submit
**items**! It is not possible to loop over submit items (see [[ticket:429|ticket #429]]).


===== Adding javascript code =====

You can add behaviors to any controls with javascript, with your prefered js
library (jForms uses jQuery).

All generated fields have an id. Ids are composed names:
"jforms_module_formname_controlref". For example, for a control with the ref
"address", declared in the form "identity" provided the "users" module, the id
of the generated field is: "jforms_users_identity_address".

The form element is also generated with an id, composed with the name of the
module and the name of the jforms form: "jforms_module_formname". In our
example, the id is "jforms_users_identity".

Knowing that, you can retrieve all fields and the form element with the
@@document.getElementById()@@ function.

To know more about javascript possibilities, read documentation about the
generator you use. See for example [[display/html-generator|the HTML generator]]
provided with Jelix, and its possibilities about submit handlers for instance.

===== Choosing a generator =====

To generate HTML code, template plugins call a generator (or builder)
which is a component of jForms.

It is possible to use another generator than the default one ('html').
You would want to generate a form based on a library like ExtJS, or a form
built using XForms etc.

Generators are themselves plugins. Furthermore, since Jelix 1.5, the generator
'html' is also extensible: you can provide your own plugins to
generate HTML code of some specific controls, without redefining th whole
generator. These are "formwidget" plugins.

Each generator has a name. The default generator is, as we already say, 'html'.
It is specified in the parameter //defaultJformsBuilder// of the main configuration.

Note: since Jelix 1.5, architecture of generators has been modified. But it
is still possible to use olders generators. To use them, you should
prefix their name with "legacy.". For example, to use  the deprecated
builder 'htmllight', indicate 'legacy.htmllight'. Read manual of previous
version of Jelix to know how to use them.

To specify your own generator for th whole application, modify this parameter
in the configuration:

<code ini>
[tplplugins] 
defaultJformsBuilder = myformbuilder
</code>

To achieve a fine-grained control, you can even choose a generator in @@{form}@@
ou @@{formfull}@@ (as fourth argument) :

<code html>
  {formfull $form, 'mymodule~default:save', array(), 'legacy.htmllight'}
</code>

Those plugins support a fifth parameter which is an array of options passed to
the generator. These options depends on the used generator. (//errorDecorator// and //method// for 'html').

Note: You can of course create a new generator as inheriting from an existing
one. That way, you can customize only some of the output or set an option
directly in its constructor. ...

More about generators the 'html' generator: [[display/html-generator|"html" generator]].

===== Mixing jForms and AJAX response =====

see [[/web-services/ajax|ajax response documentation]].