FormGeneratorBundle

We were extremely bored with writing/generating/keeping-up-to-date our FormType classes so we wanted to automate the process and limit required changes only to Entity/Document/Whatever class and get new form out of the box - this is how FormGenerator was invented.

We use annotations on daily basis so it was natural choice for forms' configuration although YAML/XML support is planned.

Basic Usages

Consider a class

/**
 * @Form\Form(
 *  personal = { "title", "name", "surname", "photo", "active" },
 *  work = { "salary" },
 *  admin = { "id" = { "type" = "number" }, "surname" }
 * )
 */
class Person
{
    public $id;
    
    /**
     * @Form\Display(type="choice", choices = { "mr" = "Mr.", "ms" = "Ms." })
     */
    public $title;
    
    /**
     * @Form\Display(type="text")
     */
    public $name;
    
    /**
     * @Form\Display(type="text")
     */
    public $surname;
    
    /**
     * @Form\Display(type="file")
     */
    public $photo;
    
    /**
     * @Form\Display(type="checkbox")
     */
    public $active;
    
    /**
     * @Form\Display(type="money")
     */
    public $salary;
}

Now instead of writing whole PersonFormType and populating FormBuilder there we can use instead:

use Codete\FormGeneratorBundle\FormGenerator;

// Symfony 3.3+ way
$generator = $this->get(FormGenerator::class);
// "old way"
$generator = $this->get('form_generator');

$person = new Person();
$form = $generator->createFormBuilder($person)->getForm();
$form->handleRequest($request);

Voila! Form for editing all annotated properties is generated for us. We could even omit type=".." in annotations if Symfony will be able to guess field type for us.

Since Symfony 3.0, if you use a custom form type, you must specify the complete namespace when specifying type

Specifying Field Options

By default everything you specify in @Form\Display (except for type) annotation will be passed as an option to generated form type. To illustrate:

/**
 * @Form\Display(type="choice", choices = { "mr" = "Mr.", "ms" = "Ms." }, "attr" = { "class" = "foo" })
 */
public $title;

is equivalent to:

$fb->add('title', ChoiceType::class, [
    'choices' => [ 'mr' => 'Mr.', 'ms' => 'Ms.' ],
    'attr' => [ 'class' => 'foo' ],
]);

Specifying field options through options, described below, was added in 1.3.0.

This approach has few advantages like saving you a bunch of keystrokes each time you are specifying options, but there are downsides too. First, if you have any custom option for one of your modifiers you forget to unset, Symfony will be unhappy and will let you know by throwing an exception. Another downside is that we have reserved type property and it's needed as an option for a repeated type. If you ever find yourself in one of described cases, or you just prefer to be explicit, you can put all Symfony fields' options into an options property:

/**
 * @Form\Display(
 *   type="choice",
 *   options={ "choices" = { "mr" = "Mr.", "ms" = "Ms." }, "attr" = { "class" = "foo" } }
 * )
 */
public $title;

When Form Generator creates a form field and finds options property, it will pass them as that field's options to the FormBuilder. Effectively this allows you to separate field's options from options for your configuration modifiers which can be a gain on its own.

Form Views

In the example we have defined additional form views in @Form\Form annotation so we can add another argument to createFormBuilder

$form = $generator->createFormBuilder($person, 'personal')->getForm();

And we will get Form with properties specified in annotation. We can also add/override fields and their properties like this:

/**
 * @Form\Form(
 *  work = { "salary" = { "attr" = { "class" = "foo" } } }
 * )
 */
class Person

But if you need something more sophisticated than Annotations we have prepared few possibilities that can be either added manually or by tagging your services. For each of them FormGenerator allows you to pass any additional informations you want in optional $context argument. Both ways allows you to specify priority which defines order of execution (default is 0, if two or more services have same priority then first added is executed first).

If you have enabled Service autoconfiguration the bundle (since version 1.2.0) will automatically tag services for you.

FormViewProvider

These are used to provide fields list and/or basic configuration for Forms and are doing exactly same thing as @Form\Form annotation.

Tag for service: form_generator.view_provider

FormConfigurationModifier

These can modify any form configuration provided by class itself or FormViewProviders. Feel free to remove or add more stuff to your Form or tweak existing configuration

Tag for service: form_generator.configuration_modifier

class InactivePersonModifier implements FormConfigurationModifierInterface
{
    public function modify($model, $configuration, $context) 
    {
        unset($configuration['salary']);
        return $configuration;
    }

    public function supports($model, $configuration, $context) 
    {
        return $model instanceof Person && $model->active === false;
    }
}

FormFieldResolver

These are responsible for creating actual field in Form and can be used for instance to attach Transformers to your fields.

Tag for service: form_generator.field_resolver

class PersonSalaryResolver implements FormFieldResolverInterface
{
    public function getFormField(FormBuilderInterface $fb, $field, $type, $options, $context) 
    {
        $transformer = new /* ... */;
        return $fb->create($field, $type, $options)
                ->addViewTransformer($transformer);
    }

    public function supports($model, $field, $type, $options, $context) 
    {
        return $model instanceof Person && $field === 'salary';
    }
}

Embedded Forms

If you need embedded forms we got you covered:

/**
 * @Form\Embed(class="Codete\FormGeneratorBundle\Tests\Model\Person")
 */
public $person;

Such sub-form will contain all annotated properties from given model. To specify a view for the generated embedded form just specify it in the configuration:

/**
 * @Form\Embed(
 *  class="Codete\FormGeneratorBundle\Tests\Model\Person",
 *  view="work"
 * )
 */
public $employee;