/ 
HTML-FormWidgets-0.3.139
/ HTML::FormWidgets

Name

HTML::FormWidgets - Create HTML form markup

Version

0.2.$Rev: 139 $

Synopsis

package MyApp::View::HTML;

use base qw(CatalystX::Usul::View::HTML);
use HTML::FormWidgets;

sub build_widgets {
   my ($self, $c, $data, $config) = @_; my $s = $c->stash; $config ||= {};

   $config->{assets      } = $s->{assets};
   $config->{base        } = $c->req->base;
   $config->{content_type} = $s->{content_type};
   $config->{fields      } = $s->{fields} || {};
   $config->{form        } = $s->{form};
   $config->{hide        } = $s->{hidden}->{items};
   $config->{messages    } = $s->{messages};
   $config->{pwidth      } = $s->{pwidth};
   $config->{root        } = $c->config->{root};
   $config->{swidth      } = $s->{width} if ($s->{width});
   $config->{templatedir } = $self->dynamic_templates;
   $config->{url         } = $c->req->path;

   HTML::FormWidgets->build( $config, $data );
   return $data;
}

Description

Transforms a Perl data structure which defines one or more "widgets" into HTML or XHTML. Each widget is comprised of these optional components: a line or question number, a prompt string, a separator, an input field, additional field help, and Ajax field error string.

Input fields are selected by the widget type attribute. A factory subclass implements the method that generates the HTML or XHTML for that input field type. Adding more widget types is straightforward

This module is using the MooTools Javascript library http://mootools.net/ to modify default browser behaviour

This module is used by CatalystX::Usul::View::HTML and as such its main use is a form generator within a Catalyst application

Subroutines/Methods

build

The build method iterates over a data structure that represents the form. One or more lists of widgets are processed in turn. New widgets are created and their rendered output replaces their definitions in the data structure

new

$self = $class->new( [{] key1 => value1, ... [}] );

Construct a widget. Mostly this is called by the "build" method. It requires the factory subclass for the widget type.

This method takes a large number of options with each widget using only few of them. Each option is described in the factory subclasses which use that option

inflate

Creates new HTML::FormWidgets objects and returns their rendered output. Called by the "_render" methods in the factory subclasses to inflate embeded widget definitions

init

$self->init( $args );

Initialises this object with data from the passed arguments. This is usually overridden in the factory subclass which sets the default for it's own attributes and then calls this method in the base class

localize

$message_text = $self->localize( $message_id );

Use the supplied key to return a value from the messages hash. This hash was passed to the constructor and should contain any literal text used by any of the widgets

render

Assemble the components of the generated widget. Each component is concatenated onto a scalar which is the returned value. This method calls _render which should be defined in the factory subclass for this widget type.

This method uses these attributes:

clear

If set to left the widget begins with an <br> element

stepno

If true it's value is wrapped in a span element of class lineNumber and appended to the return value

prompt

If true it's value is wrapped in a label element of class prompt and appended to the return value. The id attribute is used to set the for attribute of the label element. The palign attribute sets the text align style for the label element. The nowrap attribute sets whitespace style to nowrap in the label element. The pwidth attribute sets the width style attribute in the label element

sep

If true it's value is wrapped in a div element of class separator and appended to the return value

container

If true the value return by the _render method is wrapped in div element of classes container and align

tip

The text of the field help. If tiptype is set to dagger (which is the default) then a dagger symbol is wrapped in a span of class help tips and this is appended to the returned input field. The tip text is used as the title attribute. If the tiptype is not set to dagger then the help text is wrapped around the input field itself

ajaxid

The text of the message which is displayed if the field's value fails server side validation

_bootstrap

Determine the id, name and type of the widget from the supplied arguments

_ensure_class_loaded

Once the factory subclass is known this method ensures that it is loaded and then re-blesses the self referential object into the correct class

_render

This should have been overridden in the factory subclass. If it gets called its probably an error so return the value of our text attribute if set or an error message otherwise

_set_error

Stores the passed error message in the text attribute so that it gets rendered in place of the widget

__arg_list

Accepts either a single argument of a hash ref or a list of key/value pairs. Returns a hash ref in either case.

__group_fields

Wraps the top nitems widgets on the build stack in a fieldset element with a legend

__merge_config

Does a simple merging of the two hash refs that are passed as arguments. The second argument takes precedence over the first

Configuration and Environment

The following are passed to build in the config hash (they reflect this modules primary use within a Catalyst application):

assets

Some of the widgets require image files. This attribute is used to create the URI for those images

base

This is the prefix for our URI

content_type

Either application/xhtml+xml which generates XHTML 1.1 or text/html which generates HTML 4.01 and is the default

fields

This hash ref contains the fields definitions. Static parameters for each widget can be stored in configuration files. This reduces the number of attributes that have to be passed in the call to the constructor

form

Used by the ::Chooser subclass

hide

So that the ::File and ::Table subclasses can store the number of rows added as the hidden form variable nRows

messages

Many of the subclasses use this hash to supply literal text in a language of the users choosing

root

The path to the document root for this application

swidth

Width in pixels of the browser window. This is used to calculate the width of the field prompt. The field prompt needs to be a fixed length so that the separator colons align vertically

templatedir

The path to template files used by the ::Template subclass

url

Only used by the ::Tree subclass to create self referential URIs

Sensible defaults are provided by new if any of the above are undefined

Factory Subclasses

These are the possible values for the type attribute which defaults to textfield. Each subclass implements the _render method, it receives a hash ref of options an returns a scalar containing some XHTML.

The distribution ships with the following factory subclasses:

Anchor

Returns an anchor element of class option class (which defaults to linkFade) with it's href attribute set to the href option. The anchor body is set to the text option

Checkbox

Return a checkbox element of value value. Use the element's value as key to the labels hash. The hash value (which defaults null) is used as the displayed label. The checked option determines the checkbox's initial setting

Chooser

Creates a popup window which allows one item to be selected from a long list of items

Cloud

Creates list of links from the data set supplied in the data option

Date

Return another text field, this time with a calendar icon which when clicked pops up a Javascript date picker. Requires the appropriate JS library to have been loaded by the page. Attribute width controls the size of the textfield (default 10 characters) and format defaults to dd/mm/yyyy. Setting the readonly attribute to true (which is the default) causes the input textfield to become readonly

File

Display the contents of a file pointed to by path. Supports the following subtypes:

csv

Return a table containing the CSV formatted file. This and the file subtype are selectable if select >= 0 and represents the column number of the key field

file

Default subtype. Like the logfile subtype but without the pre tags

html

The _render method returns an iframe tag whose src attribute is set to path. Paths that begin with root will have that replaced with base. Paths that do not begin with "http:" will have base prepended to them

logfile

The _render method returns a table where each line of the logfile appears as a separate row containing one cell. The logfile lines are each wrapped in pre tags

source

The module Syntax::Highlight::Perl is used to provide colour highlights for the Perl source code. Tabs are expanded to tabstop spaces and the result is returned wrapped in pre tags

Freelist

New values entered into a text field can be added to the list. Existing list values (passed in values) can be removed. The height of the list is set by height.

GroupMembership

Displays two lists which allow for membership of a group. The first scrolling list contains "all" values (all), the second contains those values currently selected (current). The height of the scrolling lists is set by height

Hidden

Generates a hidden input field. Uses the default attribute as the value

ImageButton

Generates an image button where name identifies the image file in assets and is also used as the return value. The button name is set to _verb

Label

Calls msg with name as the message key. If the text does not exist text is used. If dropcap is true the first character of the text is wrapped in a span of class dropcap

Note

Calls msg with name as the message key. If the text does not exist text is used. The text is wrapped in a div of class note with align setting the style text alignment and width setting the style width

Password

Returns a password field of width width which defaults to twenty characters. If subtype equals verify then the message vPasswordPrompt and another password field are appended. The fields id and name are expected to contain the digit 1 which will be substituted for the digit 2 in the attributes of the second field

PopupMenu

Returns a list of option elements wrapped in a select element. The list of options is passed in values with the display labels in labels. The onchange event handler will be set to onchange

RadioGroup

The attribute columns sets the number of columns for the returned table of radio buttons. The list of button values is passed in values with the display labels in labels. The onchange event handler will be set to onchange

Rule

Generates a horizontal rule with optional clickable action

ScrollingList

The height attribute controls the height of the scrolling list. The list of options is passed in values with the display labels in labels. The onchange event handler will be set to onchange

Table

The input data is in $data->{values} which is an array ref for which each element is an array ref containing the list of field values.

Template

Look in templatedir for a Template::Toolkit template called id with a .tt extension. Slurp it in and return it as the content for this widget. This provides for a "user defined" widget type

Textarea

A text area. It defaults to five lines high (height) and sixty characters wide (width)

Textfield

This is the default widget type. Your basic text field which defaults to sixty characters wide (width)

Tree

Implements an expanding tree of selectable objects. See "Bugs and Limitations"

Diagnostics

None

Dependencies

Class::Accessor::Fast
Class::Inspector
HTML::Accessors
Syntax::Highlight::Perl
Text::Markdown
Text::ParseWords
Text::Tabs

Included in the distribution are the Javascript files whose methods are called by the event handlers associated with these widgets

10htmlparser.js

HTML Parser By John Resig (ejohn.org)
Original code by Erik Arvidsson, Mozilla Public License
http://erik.eae.net/simplehtmlparser/simplehtmlparser.js

Used to reimplement "innerHTML" assignments from XHTML

20mootools.js

Mootools - My Object Oriented javascript.
License: MIT-style license.
WWW: http://mootools.net/

This is the main JS library used with this package

30ourtools.js

Replaces Mootools' setHTML method with one that uses the HTML parser. The included copy has a few hacks that improve the Accordion widget

40calendar.js

Copyright Mihai Bazon, 2002-2005  |  www.bazon.net/mishoo
The DHTML Calendar, version 1.0   |  www.dynarch.com/projects/calendar
License: GNU Lesser General Public License

Implements the calendar popup used by the ::Date subclass

behaviour.js

Is included from the App::Munchies default skin. It uses the MooTools library to implement the server side field validation

Also included in the images subdirectory of the distribution are example PNG files used by some of the widgets.

Incompatibilities

There are no known incompatibilities in this module.

Bugs and Limitations

The Javascript for the ::Tree widget is not included due to copyright issues, so that widget doesn't work

The installation script does nothing with the Javascript or PNG files which are included in the distribution for completeness

There are no known bugs in this module. Please report problems to the address below. Patches are welcome

Author

Peter Flanigan, <Support at RoxSoft.co.uk>

License and Copyright

Copyright (c) 2008 Peter Flanigan. All rights reserved

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself. See perlartistic

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE