NAME
Form::Diva - Generate HTML5 form label and input fields
VERSION
version 0.0501
SYNOPSIS
Generate Form Label and Input Tags from a simple data structure. Simplify form code in your views without replacing it without a lot of even uglier Perl Code in your Controller.
Drastically reduce form clutter in your View Templates with small Data Structures.
DESCRIPTION
Create a new instance of Form::Diva from an array_ref of hash_refs describing each field of your form. The most common attributes have a single letter abbreviation to reduce typing.
Return a similar structure of the label and input attributes ready for inclusion in a web page by your templating system.
USAGE
use Form::Diva;
my $diva = Form::Diva->new(
label_class => 'col-sm-3 control-label',
input_class => 'form-control',
form => [
{ n => 'name', t => 'text', p => 'Your Name', l => 'Full Name' },
{ name => 'phone', type => 'tel', extra => 'required' },
{ qw / n email t email l Email c form-email placeholder doormat/},
{ name => 'myradio', type => 'radio', default => 1,
values => [ "1:Yes", "2:No", "3:Maybe" ] },
],
);
my $fields = $diva->generate;
my $filledfields = $diva->generate( $hashref_of_data );Once you send this to your stash or directly to the templating system the form might look like:
<form class="form-horizontal well col-md-8" role="form"
method="post" action="/form1" name="DIVA1" >
<div class="form-group">
In Template Toolkit:
[% FOREACH field IN fields %] {
[% field.label %]
<div class="col-sm-8">
[% field.input %]
</div>
[% END %]
Or in Mojo::Template
% foreach my $field (@$fields) {
<%== $field->{'label'} %>
<div class="col-sm-8">
<%== $field->{'input'} %>
</div>
% }
</div>
<div class="form-group">
<div class="col-sm-offset-3 col-sm-8">
<input type="submit" class="btn btn-large btn-primary"
name="submit" value="submit_me" >
</div>
</div>
</form>METHODS
new
Create a new object from a Data Structure ().
generate
When called without arguments returns the blank form with placeholders and value set to default or null if there is no default.
When provided an optional hashref of data it sets values based on the hashref and suppresses placeholder.
The data returned is in the form of an array reference with a hash reference for the label and input attributes.
A second optional hashref may be passed to override the values list for select, checkbox and radio button inputs, see below.
clone
Copy a Form::Diva object optionally modifiying some of the values in the copy. This is useful if you have several similar forms, define a form diva object with all of the fields, then make copies for the shorter forms.
my $newdiva = $diva->clone({
neworder => [ qw / A B c D E /], });Arguments to clone
Arguments to clone are passed as a hashref. All of the arguments are optional since if omitted the value of the original object is just copied. clone with no arguments would just make a copy of your original object. The arguments are:
neworder
An array ref of the names of the fields in your form. This will let you re-order fields and you do not need to include all of the fields. You cannot define new fields on a clone but you can omit them.
input_class, label_class
Change these values for your copy.
The Form::Diva Data Structure
{ label_class => 'some class in your css',
input_class => 'some class in your css',
form => [
{ name => 'some_field_name', ... },
...
],
}label_class, input_class
Specify the contents the label's class attribute and the input's class attribute. The input_class can be over-ridden for a single field by using the c/class attribute in a field definition.
If you need to access these two values they both have accessor methods $diva->label_class() and $diva->input_class();.
form
Form::Diva knows about the most frequently needed attributes in HTML5 label and input tags. The attribute extra is provided to handle valueless attributes like required and attributes that are not explicitly supported by Form::Diva. Each supported tag has a single character shortcut. When no values in a field definition require spaces the shortcuts make it extremely compact to describe a field using qw/.
The only required value in a field definition is name. When not specified type defaults to text.
Multivalued fields are not currently supported, but may be in the future.
Supported attributes and their shortcuts
c class over-ride input_class for this field
d default sets value for an empty form
e,x extra any other attribute(s)
i id defaults to name
l label defaults to ucfirst(name)
n name field name -- required
p placeholder placeholder to show in an empty form
t type checkbox, radio, textarea or any input types
type defaults to text input type
v values for radio and checkbox inputs onlyextra attribute
The contents of extra are placed verbatim in the input tag. Use for HTML5 attributes that have no value such as disabled and any of the other attributes you may wish to use in your forms that have not been implemented, you will need to type out attribute="something" if it is not valueluess.
Common Attributes with no Value
disabled, readonly, required
Should be placed in the extra field when needed.
TextArea
TextArea fields are handled the same as the text type.
Select Radio Button and CheckBox
Select, Radio Button and CheckBox Input types are similar to each other, and take an extra attribute 'values'. Form::Diva does not currently support multi-valued CheckBoxes, if a record's data has multiple values only one will be selected in the form.
values
For CheckBoxes the values attribute is just the values of the check boxes. If value is set and matches one of the values it will be checked.
{ type => 'checkbox',
name => 'mycheckbox',
values => [ 'Miami', 'Chicago', 'London', 'Paris' ] }For RadioButtons the values attribute is a number and text seperated by a colon. When the form is submitted just the number will be returned.
{ t => 'radio',
n => 'myradio',
v => [ '1:New York', '2:Philadelphia', '3:Boston' ] }For Select inputs there are two forms of values. If the value itself and the label are the same then values is just a list of those values which will also be used as the label. The second form requires the value and the label to be seperated by a colon.
values => [ qw /pineapple persimmon nectarine ]
or
values => [ 'item1:Pineapple', 'item2:Georgia Peach', 'item3:Naval Orange']When using the first form of values the label is not CamelCased or otherwise changed, if you want that you'll need to use the second form.
Over-Riding Values
It is possible to override values by passing an extra argument to generate. The override argument is a hashref { field_name => [ values ...]}. It is even possible to create your initial object with an empty values lists and pass a list every time you generate the form.
AUTHOR
John Karr, brainbuz at brainbuz.org
BUGS
Please report any bugs or feature requests through the web interface at https://bitbucket.org/brainbuz/formdiva/issues. I will be notified, and then you'll automatically be notified of progress on your bug as I make changes.
SUPPORT
You can find documentation for this module with the perldoc command.
perldoc Form::DivaYou can also look for information at:
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
LICENSE AND COPYRIGHT
Copyright 2014 John Karr.
This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/.