[Catalyst] Invoke *complete* subrequests in Catalyst?

[Nate Wiger]

Matt S Trout wrote:
> Nate Wiger wrote:
>> I'm building an AJAX app with FormBuilder, and want to use it to embed 
>> multiple forms in a page (each of which would be linked to a different 
>> action and submitted using JQuery). I've found I can do this, but I've 
>> had to make changes to the FB plugin so that it only instantiates an 
>> object on a call to $c->form, and doesn't use prepare() to do so. This 
>> then requires a bit of internal magic to work both normally and in 
>> subrequest mode.
>>
>> Other ideas?
> 
> Actually, yes.
> 
> MAKE IT A CONTROLLER BASE CLASS LIKE I ALREADY SAID
> 
> You just proved *perfectly* why this is a really stupid thing to have as a 
> plugin ...

Never said I wasn't going to do that... but it doesn't really solve the 
problem. I've played with the base class, AFAICT it has the issue that 
you have to say something like this:

    sub myform : Local Form {
        my($self,$c) = @_;
        my $form = $c->form;
        $form->etc(...);
        $c->stash->{form_output} = $form->render;
    }

To get the form instantiated and rendered. In the normal case, having it 
as a plugin makes sense because:

    - The form config is automatically resolved per the $c->action
    - The form is loaded during Catalyst preparation
    - The form is rendered automatically via Catalyst View::Whatever

I'm not sure if you've actually tried to use the FormBuilder plugin or 
not. If you can show/hint/link at how these items could be done via a 
base class, and auto-invoked during prepare(), that would be helpful. So 
far I can't find any decent documentation on controller base classes.

-Nate