[Catalyst] Design of a new form validator

[Sebastian Riedel]

I've started implementing yet another form validator, main goals are  
elegant syntax and integrated xml generator.

Features on the todo so far:

* Pluggable element/constraint support  
(HTML::Widget::Element::Textfield, HTML::Widget::Constraint::String...)
* Both validation and xml generation are optional
* Clean xml output (easy to style with css)
* Chained accessors (makes complex data look simple)
* Extendable enough to support all kinds of Ajax hacks
* Client side JS validation


Here's a mockup:

     use HTML::Widget;

     my $w = HTML::Widget->new( { method => 'POST, 'action => '/foo/ 
action' } );
     $w->element( 'Textfield', 'age' )->label('Age')->size(3);
     $w->element( 'Textfield', 'name' )->label('Name')->size(60);
     $w->element( 'Submit', 'ok' )->value('OK');
     $w->constraint( 'Integer', 'age' )->message('No integer.');
     $w->constraint( 'Required', 'age', 'name' )->message('Missing  
value.');
     my $form = $w->process;
     my $form = $w->process($query);

     [% form.as_xml %]

     [% FOREACH element = form.errors %]
         <p>
         [% element %]:<br/>
         <ul>
         [% FOREACH message = form.messages(element) %]
             <li>[% element %]:</li>
         [% END %]
         </ul>
         </p>
     [% END %]

     <p><ul>
     [% FOREACH element = form.errors %]
         [% IF result.error( element, 'Integer' ) %]
             <li>[% element %] has to be an integer.</li>
         [% END %]
     [% END %]
     </ul></p>


The output of as_xml() is not yet defined, need a designer to create  
a simple easy to theme form.
And no, there are no alternatives on CPAN that fit all my needs.


--
sebastian