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Catalyst-Controller-FormBuilder-MultiForm-0.01
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/ Catalyst::Controller::FormBuilder::MultiForm

NAME

Catalyst::Controller::FormBuilder::MultiForm - Multiple forms per template with Catalyst::Controller::FormBuilder

SYNOPSIS

In your controller:

use base 'Catalyst::Controller::FormBuilder::MultiForm';

sub foo : Local Form {
  my ($self, $c) = @_;
  
  # Get a local copy of the "foo" form
  my $foo_form = $self->formbuilder;
  
  # Forward to the "bar" action to include the "bar" form, and get a copy of it
  my $bar_form = $c->forward('bar');
  
  # Do stuff with the "foo" or "bar" form results
  # ...
}

sub bar : Local Form {
  my ($self, $c) = @_;
  return $self->formbuilder;
}

In your foo.fb FormBuilder configuration file:

name: my_foo_form

In your bar.fb FormBuilder configuration file:

name: my_bar_form

In your template for the foo action (Template Toolkit):

<!-- Display the "foo" form -->
[% forms.my_foo_form.FormBuilder.render %]

<!-- Display the "bar" form -->
[% forms.my_bar_form.FormBuilder.render %]

DESCRIPTION

This module allows you to access multiple FormBuilder objects per template when using Catalyst::Controller::FormBuilder (see Catalyst::Controller::FormBuilder for more information).

By default, Catalyst::Controller::FormBuilder provides a set of variables in the stash that you can use to access your form (default: $c->stash->{FormBuilder} and $c->stash->{formbuilder}).

If you forward to another :Form action, that action's FormBuilder object will replace the FormBuilder object in your calling action. This allows you to forward to other actions for building form details yet keep your form handling in the calling action, and is quite handy.

However, it prevents you from forwarding to other :Form actions for the purpose of building multiple FormBuilder objects for use in a single page.

This module allows you to keep a copy of the FormBuilder object for each :Form action you forward to in the stash, so that you can access multiple forms inside one template. Each form is kept in a stash variable (default: $c->{forms}) and can be accessed by the name of the form (as set in your form configuration).

For example, if you named your form foo_edit in your form configuration, you could access this form by name with the following stash variables:

# Access the formbuilder object for the "foo_edit" form 
$c->stash->{forms}->{foo_edit}->{FormBuilder}

# Access the formbuilder data for the "foo_edit" form
$c->stash->{forms}->{foo_edit}->{formbuilder}

If you wish to use the default behavior, just use the regular FormBuilder stash values:

$c->stash->{FormBuilder}
$c->stash->{formbuilder}

Since you can use both behaviors, it is safe to use this module as your base controller without having to modify your existing single form FormBuilder code and templates. Just don't access the form by name, and you won't get the multiform behavior.

TEMPLATES

For a description of templating systems supported, see "TEMPLATES" in Catalyst::Controller::FormBuilder.

Template::Toolkit

Template::Toolkit and HTML::Mason are pretty straightforward, and work as described above by just accessing the stash.

Example of rendering a form named foo in Template::Toolkit:

[% forms.foo.FormBuilder.render %]

HTML::Mason

Example of rendering a form named foo in HTML::Mason:

<% $forms->{foo}->{FormBuilder}->render %>

HTML::Template

If you wish to access a form by name with HTML::Template, you can do so by prefixing the usual FormBuilder HTML::Template variables with the name of your form, like [form name]-[formbuilder template variable].

See CGI::FormBuilder::Template::HTML for information about FormBuilder template variables in HTML::Template..

Example of rendering a form named foo in HTML::Template:

<tmpl_var foo-form-start>
<tmpl_var foo-form-statetags>
<tmpl_var foo-label-username> <tmpl_var foo-field-username>
<tmpl_var foo-label-password> <tmpl_var foo-field-password>
<tmpl_var foo-form-submit>
<tmpl_var foo-form-end>

CONFIGURATION

For a details on how to set configuration options for FormBuilder, see "CONFIGURATION" in Catalyst::Controller::FormBuilder.

If you wish to set any of the configuration options specific to MultiForm, you would do so as follows:

MyApp->config
(
  # Define config options specific to MultiForm
  'Controller::FormBuilder::MultiForm' => 
  {
    stash_name => 'lots_of_forms_in_here',
    template_type => 'TT',
  }
  # Define any regular FormBuilder config options
  'Controller::FormBuilder' => 
  {
    # ..
  }
);

The following configuration options are available for MultiForm:

stash_name

Defines the name of the stash variable to use for holding all of your forms.

Not applicable for HTML::Template view.

Please note that this option does not effect FormBuilder's stash_name option in any way. You are safe to set each option as you please in the appropriate configuration section.

Default: forms

template_type

Defines the Catalyst View that the stash will be prepared for.

Possible values are: HTML::Template, Mason or TT.

Default: TT

CAVEATS

Form Name is Required

You must provide a form name in your form configuration for this to work. If your form is not named, then it will not be included in the list of forms.

Form Name Uniqueness

Each form name must be unique. If you forward to more than one form with the same name, the form data will be overwritten.

Field Name Uniqueness

Be careful with field names when using the module. Clashing field names will result in data from one form bleeding in to an other. This is just the nature of POST / GET.

To get around this, FormBuilder itself would have to prefix the form name on each field id natively in its rendering methods, which it currently does not.

Multiple Form on the Fly

It would be handy to be able to generate multiple forms on the fly with this module. For example, you could make an AJAX call to generate a series of "create" forms on the fly.

However, because CGI::FormBuilder does not yet support unique field names on the fly, this functionality will not be available in MultiForm.

SEE ALSO

Catalyst::Controller::FormBuilder, CGI::FormBuilder, Catalyst::Manual

AUTHOR

Danny Warren <perl@dannywarren.com>

CREDITS

Thanks to Juan Camacho for his help with this, and for his great Catalyst::Controller::FormBuilder module.

LICENSE

Copyright (c) 2007 Danny Warren. All rights reserved.

This library is free software, you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.