/ 
Alien-GvaScript-1.21
River stage one • 3 direct dependents • 5 total dependents
/ Class

NAME

Class GvaScript.Form - Wrapper around HTML Forms

SYNOPSIS

<form id="my_form" onsubmit="return false;">
  <div repeat="foo">
    <h2>Foo #{foo.count}</h2>
    <input type="text" name="person.name"/>
    <input type="text" name="person.bdate"/>
    This is the repeated foo section
    <table>
      <tr repeat="bar">
        <td>Item #{bar.count}</td>
        <td><input name="#{bar.path}.buz"></td>
        <td><button onclick="GvaScript.Form.remove('#{bar.path}')">
              Remove this row
            </button></td>
      </tr>
    </table>
     <button onclick="GvaScript.Form.add('#{foo.path}.bar')">
        Add a bar
     </button>
  </div>  
  <button onclick="GvaScript.Form.add('foo')">Add a foo</button>
</form>

<script>
  var gvascript_form = new GvaScript.Form('my_form', {
    datatree: {name:'kitty', bdate:'01.01.1990'},
    dataprefix: 'person',
    // 'active' form elements 
    registry: [
      ['input', 'mouseover', function(event) {}],
      ['input', 'mouseout',  function(event) {}],
      ['input', 'change',    function(event, newv ,oldv) {}],
      ['input', 'init',      function(event, newv) {}]
    ],
    // handlers to form's custom events
    onInit: function(gva_form) {},
    onRepeatBlockRemove: function(gva_form, arg) {
      arg[0] // removed repeat name
      arg[1] // removed repeat path
    },
    onRepeatBlockAdd: function(gva_form, arg) {
      arg[0] // added repeat name
      arg[1] // added repeat path
    },
    onChange: function(gva_form, event) {
      // event.target -> element changed
      // event.memo.oldvalue -> changed element's old value
      // event.memo.newvalue -> changed element's new value
    },
    onSubmit: function(gva_form) {
      // ....
      // do form submission
      // ....
      if(success)               {gva_form.fire('AfterSubmit', arg)}
      else 
      if(data_validation_error) {gva_form.fire('DataValidationError', arg)}
      else                      {gva_form.fire('SubmitFailure', arg)} 
    },
    onAfterSubmit: function(gva_form, arg) {},
    onDataValidationError: function(gva_form, arg) {},
    onSubmitFailure: function(gva_form, arg) {},
    onBeforeDestroy: function(gva_form, arg) {}
  }
</script>

DESCRIPTION

This module of Alien::GvaScript manages forms with hierarchical fields and dynamically repeated sections. It works in close collaboration with Alien::GvaScript::Repeat.

The design is partially inspired by the Web Forms 2.0 proposal (http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-forms/current-work/), but is not an attempt to implement the proposed specification: there are some differences both in syntax and in semantics.

Constructor

new GvaScript.Form(form_id[, options])

  • form_id

    id of the HTML form to extend

  • options

    hash of optional properties that would define the behavior of the form

    • datatree

      tree represention of the initial form data.

      Ex:

      { 
  name: 'barbie', 
  age: '49', 
  friends: [
    { name: 'ken', age: '35' }, 
    { name: 'jen', age: '55' }
  ] 
}

    • dataprefix

      sometimes it's helpful to prefix the html input names to give them 'context'.

      Ex: doll.name doll.friends.0.name.

      in this example, the dataprefix should be set to 'doll'

    • registry

      a list of arrays [expression, eventName, handler].

      each item in the array would be passed over to the "notify" method.

    • onInit

      function to be called after the successful initialization of the GvaScript.Form instance.

    • onRepeatBlockRemove

      function to be called after a block in a repeated section is removed

      Signature

      function onRepeatBlockRemove(gva_form, arg) {
  // gva_form : GvaScript.Form instance
  // arg: array containing repeat name as first element and repeat path as second
}

    • onRepeatBlockAdd

      function to be called after a block in a repeated section is added

      Signature

      function onRepeatBlockAdd(gva_form, arg) {
  // gva_form : GvaScript.Form instance
  // arg: array containing repeat name as first element and repeat path as second
}

    • onChange

      function to be called when any of the form's elements has changed or onAdd/onRemove of a repeatable section.

      Signature

      function onChange(gva_form, event) {
  // gva_form : GvaScript.Form instance
  // event: Event object fired by the change on the form element
  //        Has a memo object that has olvalue and newvalue set unless 
  //        called from the Repeat module
}

    • onBeforeSubmit

      function to be called directly before the form submits.

      Signature

      function onBeforeSubmit(gva_form) {
  // gva_form : GvaScript.Form instance
  // return false if you want to stop the form from submitting
}

    • onSubmit

      function to be called when the form is submit.

      Signature

      function onSubmit(gva_form) {
  // gva_form : GvaScript.Form instance
  // use to fire 'onAfterSubmit', 'onSubmitFailure' or 'onDataValidationError'
}

    • onBeforeDestroy

      function to be called right before the form instance calls the destroy method.

      Callback useful for doing some inhouse cleaning before the form gets removed from the DOM.

    • on[XYZ]

      Event handlers for custom form events. The form instance should fire these events so as corresponding handler can be fired.

    • actionsbar

      initializes and instance of Alien::GvaScript::ActionsBar.

      Signature

      actionsbar : {
    container :  'container_id',
    actions   : [
        {
            label : 'Submit Form',
            type  : 'submit'
        },
        {
            label : 'Init Form',
            type  : 'button',
            callback : function() {
              // 'this' correspond to the button 
              GvaScript.Form.init('form', datatree);
            }
        }
    ]
}

HTML

Markup of repeat elements

Repeat elements may occur outside of forms and therefore are described in a separate document; see Alien::GvaScript::Repeat.

Autofocus

The "init" method inspects all form elements for an autofocus attribute; the first element that possesses this attribute automatically receives focus.

Similarly, when a repetition block is added into the form through the "add" method, the first element within that repetition block that possesses an autofocus attribute automatically receives focus.

METHODS

destroy

gvascript_form.destroy()

instance destructor - will unregister the GvaScript.Form instance from the GvaScript.Forms namespace and will remove all of its observers.

getId

gvascript_form.getId()

returns the id of the form element that the gvascript_form instance is wrapped around.

fire

gvascript_form.fire(eventName[, arg])

used to fire event on the for instance and thus called corresponding responders and instance callback.

eventName: eventName to fire without the 'on' prefix.

arg argument to send over to the corresponding responder(s) and callback.

this method will

  1. execute the early responders set the on[eventName]

  2. execute instance on[eventName] callback

  3. execute the responders set the on[eventName]

execution sequence will stop whenever one of the responders or callback returns false

NOTE that the onBeforeSubmit, onSubmit events cannot be notified programatically. You actually need to call form.submit() for these events to be fired.

register

gvascript_form.register(expression, eventName, handler)
GvaScript.Form.register(form, expression, eventName, handler)

tells the form to watch the eventName on elements that match the expression and to fire the corresponding handler.

expression (String) - A css selector

eventName (String) - The name of the event, in all lower case, without the "on" prefix — e.g., "click" (not "onclick").

A custom "init" event is also supported which is fired on an input that gets its value initialized with the initialization of the form.

handler (Function) - handler to fire.

Signature

function handler(event[, newValue[, oldValue]]) {
  event.target // element being observed
}

newValue is set for the change and the init events.

oldValue is set for the change.

NOTE: Form.Element.setValue method is wrapped in GvaSript?.ProtoExtensions module to programatically fire the blur event after setting the value on the input, and hence firing the change handler if any.

[This method can be called either as an instance method or as a generic method. If calling as a generic, pass the form HTMLElement/id in as the first argument.]

unregister

gvascript_form.unregister(expression[, eventName[, handler]])
GvaScript.Form.unregister(form, expression[, eventName[, handler]])

removes observers set on given expression. if eventName is provided, will only stop observing that eventName. if handler is also provided, will just stop calling this handler.

NOTE that the same handler signature should be used in the register method for it to work in the unregister method.

[This method can be called either as an instance method or as a generic method. If calling as a generic, pass the form HTMLElement/id in as the first argument.]

init

gvascript_form.init(initial_tree, prefix)
GvaScript.Form.init(form, initial_tree, prefix)

form is the id of a form (or directly the DOM element). Optional initial_tree is a javascript nested datastructure containing initial values for fields, that will be passed to the "fill_from_tree" method.

[This method can be called either as an instance method or as a generic method. If calling as a generic, pass the form HTMLElement/id in as the first argument.]

to_hash

var flat_hash = GvaScript.Form.to_hash(form);

Inspects the contents of all fields in form and returns a flat hash of pairs (key-value).

[This method can be called either as an instance method or as a generic method. If calling as a generic, pass the form HTMLElement/id in as the first argument.]

to_tree

var tree = GvaScript.Form.to_tree(form);

Inspects the contents of all fields in form and returns a data tree, were dotted names in form names are expanded into sub-arrays or sub-hashes. So for example if the form looks like

<input name="father.firstname"> <input name="father.lastname"><br>
<input name="mother.firstname"> <input name="mother.lastname"><br>
<div repeat="child" repeat-start="1">
  <input name="#{child.path}.firstname"><br>
</div>

and if that form has been expanded with 3 repetition blocks for children, the resulting tree would be

{ "father" : {"firstname" : ..., "lastname": ...},
  "mother" : {"firstname" : ..., "lastname": ...},
  "child"  : [ {"firstname": ...},
               {"firstname": ...},
               {"firstname": ...} ] }

[This method can be called either as an instance method or as a generic method. If calling as a generic, pass the form HTMLElement/id in as the first argument.]

fill_from_tree

GvaScript.Form.fill_from_tree(form, field_prefix, tree);

Fills the form from values found in tree (this is the reverse of the "to_tree" operation). Optional field_prefix is prepended to key names in tree for finding the corresponding form fields.

The method walks through nested subtrees in tree: the sequence of keys leading to a leaf is concatenated into a flat string, with dot separators, and if the form has a corresponding input element, the value of that element is set to the value of the leaf. Furthermore, if the initial tree contains repeated data sets (array subtrees), and if the form contains repeat elements with the same path, then new repetition blocks are dynamically created to match the number of items in the array: so if the form above is filled with the following tree

{ "child"  : [ {"firstname": "Abel"},
               {"firstname": "Bob"},
               {"firstname": "Cod"},
               {"firstname": "Dave"}, ] }

then four repetition blocks will automatically created in the form.

[This method can be called either as an instance method or as a generic method. If calling as a generic, pass the form HTMLElement/id in as the first argument.]

add

GvaScript.Form.add(repeat_name, count);

Creates one or several new repetition blocks. The parameter count is optional and defaults to 1. Focus is automatically given to the first input element in the last repetition block that has an autofocus attribute (if any).

See "add" in Alien::GvaScript::Repeat for more explanations on the add operation.

remove

GvaScript.Form.remove(repeat_block[, live_update]);

Removes a repetition block from the DOM. The argument is either a DOM element or a string containing the element id.

param Boolean live_update: flag to indicate whether the 'remaining' repeatable sections are to be also removed from DOM, recreated by re-merging the data with repeat template, then finally re-appended to the DOM. Default true.

All repetition blocks above the removed block are renumbered, leaving no hole in the index sequence. To do so, these blocks are also removed from the DOM, and then added again through the "add" method. This operation is implemented by "remove" in Alien::GvaScript::Repeat.

The recreated blocks are then re-populated with their previous input values.

autofocus

GvaScript.Form.autofocus(element);

Inspects DOM children of element, and gives focus to the first child that has an autofocus attribute.

GvaScript.Forms

namespace that holds all active instances of GvaScript.Form

instances are unique per form id

METHODS

get

GvaScript.Forms.get(id)

finds and returns the GvaScript.Form instance where id is the unique id of the form HTMLElement.

GvaScript.Form.Responders

A repository of global listeners notified about every step of the GvaSript.Form lifecycle.

Sometimes, you need to provide generic behaviors over all GvaScript.Form(s) in a single application.

To achieve this, GvaScript.Form provides global Responders that will be executed for every GvaScript.Form instance.

Responders by default are executed after the instance specific event callback.

METHODS

register

GvaScript.Form.Responders.register({eventName: handler}[, {eventName: handler}[, ...]]})

adding one or more global form events responders.

Supported eventNames: onInit, onChange, onBeforeSubmit, onSubmit, on[XXX] where on[XXX] is a custom event name.

unregister

GvaScript.Form.Responders.unregister({eventName: handler}[, {eventName: handler}[, ...]]})

unregistering one or more global form events responders.

GvaScript.Form.EarlyResponders

Identical to GvaScript.Form.Responders except that these responders would be executed before the instance specific callback.

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