Allow form layout definitions to modify default form, rather than all or nothing

[builtbybrayne]

For very large forms, or auto-generated schemas it is impractical to control the layout using the form section of the configuration (a la https://github.com/joshfire/jsonform/wiki#controlling-the-layout-of-the-form).

The use-case I struggled with was trying to use the 'checkboxes' form layout. I have found no way to specify that an array should be treated as a checkbox array without also being forced to then specify the entire form layout. This is an unworkable solution for me as I have many hundreds of fairly deeply nested auto-generated fields in the schema which I couldn't possibly justify defining the layout for using the 'form' parameter as it's too variable. But I would benefit hugely from the option of specifying that this, and only this, field needs to have layout information - while all other fields can be created using the default form layout.

This feature request is therefore to allow users to specify the default "*" behaviour along with the option to specify override behaviour for specific fields only. This is in contract to the current situation where one either uses the default for the whole form, or specifies the whole form manually.

If I've missed something or got this wrong, then I'd suggest that this ticket turns from a new feature request into a request to improve the documentation to better reflect the solution that already exists.

[denseflux]

I have exactly the same need. Simply to turn some text fields into text areas in a long form. An override solution, or ability to add these fields into additional json schema properties directly would be a great help.

[Coridyn]

You can add an onBeforeRender callback to the jsonForm initialiser object.

You can use this callback to set the template to use for any element without having to use the form section of the configuration.

    $('form').jsonForm({
        schema: {
            // ... schema data goes here.
        },
        onBeforeRender: function (data, node) {
            // Set the template to be rendered for this node.
            node.template = '<%= template_string %>...';
        }
    });

The callback receives data about the node and the current formNode instance itself.

    ...
    onBeforeRender: function (data, node) {
        /*
        The `data` property has the following structure:
        {
            id: formNode.id,
            keydash: formNode.keydash,
            elt: formNode.formElement,
            schema: formNode.schemaElement,
            node: formNode,
            value: isSet(formNode.value) ? formNode.value : '',
            escape: function escapeHTML
        }
        */


        data.elt.key;   // A string representing the full data path for this element: 'item.list[].listItem'
        node.arrayPath; // The index for each array in `data.elt.key`.
        node.name; // The interpolated key/arrayPath. e.g.: 'item.pricing[0].listItem'

        // Get information on parent nodes through `node.parentNode`.
        node.parentNode.schemaElement.type;

        // Set `fieldtempalte` to false to avoid wrapping 
        // this element in boilerplate markup.
        node.fieldtemplate = false;
    }
    ...

I hope that helps :)

[ulion]

Implemented customFormItems property for the jsonform option to custom form layout for selected schema key in above mentioned commit of my branch.

[stale]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.