Mark Wiesemann » Blog Archive » Combining DHTMLRules, tableless layout and multiple page forms with HTML

Combining DHTMLRules, tableless layout and multiple page forms with HTML_QuickForm

Posted on March 29th, 2007 Mark Wiesemann 10 comments

With the new 0.3.0 release of HTML_QuickForm_DHTMLRulesTableless it is now possible to build forms with HTML_QuickForm that have the following features:
- tableless layout (no <table> tags, very good accessibility)
- DHTMLRules (form elements errors are shown on top of each element)
- more than one page
To achieve such forms, four PEAR package are needed:
Information about building forms with HTML_QuickForm, about building multiple page forms with HTML_QuickForm_Controller, about using the tableless renderer, and about using the DHTMLRulesTableless class on forms built with HTML_QuickForms can be found in the PEAR manual. The only thing that I’ll explain here is the usage of DHTMLRulesTableless class with HTML_QuickForm_Controller.

In general, a form page is added like in the following code snippet:
```
class Page1 extends HTML_QuickForm_Page
{
    // ...
}
$form =& new HTML_QuickForm_Controller();
$page1 =& new Page1('page1');
$form->addPage($page1);
```
To use now the DHTMLRulesTableless class, you need to add and to change one line:
```
require_once 'HTML/QuickForm/PageDHTMLRulesTableless.php';
class Page1 extends HTML_QuickForm_PageDHTMLRulesTableless
{
    // ...
}
$form =& new HTML_QuickForm_Controller();
$page1 =& new Page1('page1');
$form->addPage($page1);
```
That means that you only need to do two things:
- you need to include HTML/QuickForm/PageDHTMLRulesTableless.php
- instead of extending from HTML_QuickForm_Page, your page classes need to extend from HTML_QuickForm_PageDHTMLRulesTableless
The new HTML_QuickForm_PageDHTMLRulesTableless class is mostly a simple copy of the HTML_QuickForm_DHTMLRulesTableless class, but it extends HTML_QuickForm_Page and not HTML_QuickForm. This code duplication couldn’t be avoided because of a bad design of the Page class of HTML_QuickForm_Controller. After HTML_QuickForm2 is ready, a new Controller package is planned, and Alexey Borzov already announced that his new package will have a better design to avoid the need of such code duplications.

PEAR, Tableless renderer
10 Responses to “Combining DHTMLRules, tableless layout and multiple page forms with HTML_QuickForm”
1. Harold June 26th, 2007 at 02:25
  
  Don’t you have a example running?
2. Mark Wiesemann June 26th, 2007 at 09:29
  
  Harold, no, there is currently no complete example available. Do you need any help on this topic? Then just reply here or send me an email.
  
  I have added an item to my TODO list about adding an example.
3. Twyst November 10th, 2007 at 15:04
  
  I’m trying to set this up, exactly the way that you’re explaining here - but with QF 3.2.10, QF_Controller 1.0.8, DHTMLRulesTableless 0.3.3, and Renderer_Tableless, I get the original layout - NOT the tableless layout. I’m not getting any errors, mind you - it’s like it’s just passing it straight through. Unless there’s something I’m completely missing?
4. Mark Wiesemann November 10th, 2007 at 16:04
  
  Twyst, you need to define your own HTML_QuickForm_Action_Display class that takes care of using the tableless renderer. The usage of this renderer is described in the PEAR manual.
  
  Thanks for asking this; I’ll consider this point for the promised example code.
5. Johnny Loke December 23rd, 2007 at 09:54
  
  Hi Mark,
  I faced the same problem as Twyst by following the PEAR manual stated in your reply.
  The following are the code I used to customized my QuickForm renderer.
  $form =& new HTML_QuickForm();
  $renderer =& new HTML_QuickForm_Renderer_Tableless();
  $form->accept($renderer);
  echo $renderer->toHtml();
  Did I miss out some setting. Thanks in advance for helping.
6. Using the tableless renderer together with HTML_QuickForm_Controller at Mark Wiesemann December 23rd, 2007 at 17:32
  
  [...] post “Combining DHTMLRules, tableless layout and multiple page forms with HTML_QuickForm” led to several inqueries about why the layout with the shown code snippets still uses [...]
7. Mark Wiesemann December 23rd, 2007 at 17:35
  
  Johnny, I’ve written a short tutorial about the missing steps for the tableless layout online:
  Using the tableless renderer together with HTML_QuickForm_Controller
8. Johnny Loke December 23rd, 2007 at 18:36
  
  Thanks alot Mark.
  I notice that I made a mistake by calling $form->toHtml(). Once I use $renderer->toHtml(), everything work perfectly.
  Thanks Mark for the prompt reply Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2008!
9. James January 11th, 2008 at 14:22
  
  Hi i just do a form in quickform,i want to be multi pages
  
  one page is easy,how can make one page to two page
  
  for example:
  step1
  name:
  email:
  
  and step2
  password:
  confirmed password:
  
  Thanks
10. Mark Wiesemann January 11th, 2008 at 17:02
  
  James, you’re either looking for HTML_QuickForm_Controller or you need to simulate the paging yourself (sessions are then your friends).
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