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Form Questions /

Moderators: martimiz, Sean, Ed, biapar, Willr, Ingo, swaiba

Customizing the layout of a form


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6 Posts   8260 Views

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Danno

Community Member, 1 Post

18 March 2009 at 9:57am

I've got a custom form working and displaying using the $Form method call within my .ss template, but the standard is to just list each Field vertically top to bottom. I want to build the form out left-to-right and then top-to-bottom and change the way the labels lay out, which is currently on top of the input element. Any ideas on how to make this happen?

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UncleCheese

Forum Moderator, 4102 Posts

18 March 2009 at 10:21am

<% control MyForm %>
<% control Fields %>
$FieldHolder (gives you the full structural markup)
$Field (form field only)
<% end_control %>
<% end_control %>

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TerryMiddleton

Community Member, 108 Posts

27 April 2009 at 2:47am

Unclecheese,

I don't get it. I apologize because I know it's simple, but I'm completely missing it.

Here's where I'm struggling to understand. $FieldHolder (gives you the full structural markup) - you are meaning CSS markup yes?

How to do I get my hands around what is really produced for the $FieldHolder?

Okay, so I've been able to strip away the field label and change the margins +/- to move the fields up/down/left/right, however at the end I'm dealing with a plate of spaghetti and then all the CSS get's interpreted differently in the different browsers.

I know I'm missing something so simple that once I understand it, SS will become even more easier to use that it already is.

Can you help?

Is the $FieldHolder the element we need to identify in the css?

Agian, I know it's simple, but I just don't get it.

Terry

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petebd

Community Member, 16 Posts

27 April 2009 at 7:17am

Take a look at this page: http://doc.silverstripe.com/doku.php?id=Form.
Halfway down is a section called "Using a custom template", which has a good example of how to layout a form anyway you like.
Hope that helps,
Pete

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petebd

Community Member, 16 Posts

27 April 2009 at 7:43am

To follow on from UncleCheese, this bit in the template basically gives you direct access to the form's fieldset.

<% control MyForm %> 
<% control Fields %> 

So now you are iterating through each FormField in the FieldSet. Each formfield has a Field() and FormField() method that can be used to output the field. Here is a quote from the documentation:

Although FieldHolder is generally what is inserted into templates, all of the field holder
templates make use of $Field. It's expected that FieldHolder will give you the "complete"
representation of the field on the form, whereas Field will give you the core editing widget,
such as an input tag.

So I guess if you want full control you will either follow the explicit field html idea in the wiki page I posted above or you use the following methods on the FormField:
Field() - the basic widget html.
Name() - the name of the field
Message() - any error message associated with this field
Title() - the main title of the field
RightTitle() - the right title for the field
Type() - the type of the field
extraClass() - the css classes associated with this field

It is interesting to look at the code of how this is used in FormField() to construct the standard html:

	/**
	 * Returns a "Field Holder" for this field - used by templates.
	 * Forms are constructed from by concatenating a number of these field holders.  The default
	 * field holder is a label and form field inside a paragraph tag.
	 * 
	 * Composite fields can override FieldHolder to create whatever visual effects you like.  It's
	 * a good idea to put the actual HTML for field holders into templates.  The default field holder
	 * is the DefaultFieldHolder template.  This lets you override the HTML for specific sites, if it's
	 * necessary.
	 * 
	 * @todo Add "validationError" if needed.
	 */
	function FieldHolder() {
		$Title = $this->XML_val('Title');
		$Message = $this->XML_val('Message');
		$MessageType = $this->XML_val('MessageType');
		$RightTitle = $this->XML_val('RightTitle');
		$Type = $this->XML_val('Type');
		$extraClass = $this->XML_val('extraClass');
		$Name = $this->XML_val('Name');
		$Field = $this->XML_val('Field');
		
		$titleBlock = (!empty($Title)) ? "<label class=\"left\" for=\"{$this->id()}\">$Title</label>" : "";
		$messageBlock = (!empty($Message)) ? "<span class=\"message $MessageType\">$Message</span>" : "";
		$rightTitleBlock = (!empty($RightTitle)) ? "<label class=\"right\" for=\"{$this->id()}\">$RightTitle</label>" : "";

		return <<<HTML
<div id="$Name" class="field $Type $extraClass">$titleBlock<div class="middleColumn">$Field</div>$rightTitleBlock$messageBlock</div>
HTML;
	}

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TerryMiddleton

Community Member, 108 Posts

27 April 2009 at 7:59am

Pete,

Thank you very much for the info on both replies. I appreciate you insight.

I was able to get it to do what I wanted (99% anyway).

It's obvious to me that I need to bury my head into some php5 class and function books to learn this. I'm very weak at understanding how it all fits together and what options I have.

For example, on the $LoginForm, it seems that I need create a new class for the LoginForm in order to modify the fields on loginform. I was successful at doing this in the SearchForm. I found the Page_Controller that has SearchForm function and was able to add a string inside the field 'Search'

Thanks for your help. I appreciate you.

Terry