[Handel] Modperl init pb

[Andrew Ford]

Bernard FRIT wrote:

>2005/10/12, Christopher H. Laco <claco at chrislaco.com>:
>  
>
>>Yeah. That means I did something right. :-)
>>    
>>
>
>You did it !!
>
>  
>
>>How's the project going?
>>    
>>
>
>Very slowly (!!) as it's a part time project and I have to glue
>several things together :
>- Catalyst (new for me)
>- Handel (ditto)
>- Glimpse
>- Formbuilder
>- TT2
>
>At the moment I'm experiencing strong drawbacks in glueing Formbuilder
>with Catalyst.
>  
>

I have registered the CGI::FormManager namespace for an alternative to 
CGI::FormBuilder.  Similar sort of API, but the module uses 
Data::FormValidator for validation. 

The idiom is:

    my $fmgr = CGI::FormManager->new(
            form1 => { options => { method => "POST" },
                       elements => [ "<h1>User data</h1>",
                                     text_field(name => 'name'),
                                     text_field(name => 'email'),
                                     select_field(name => 'ctry',
                                                  label => 'country',
                                                  options => [ [ "" =>
    "-- select a country --" ],
                                                               [ "GB" =>
    "united Kingdom" ],
                                                              
    "US=United States",
                                                                ...
                                                             ] ),
                                     ...
                       validation => { required => [ qw(name email ctry) ],
                                       constraint_methods =>  {
                                           email => email(),
                                       }
                                       }
                       },
            form2 => { ... }),

    my $form = $fmgr->form("form1");

    $tt2->process('template', { form = $form })

    my $results = $form->validate(\%data);    # or pass a $cgi object
    if ($results) {
        # do something
    }
    else {
          @missing_values = $results->missing;
          ...

Form objects stringify as the HTML that makes up the form, either using 
a built in template (which uses tables and CSS for layout) or one 
specified in the form options.  Results objects are forms, so will 
stringify to HTML with value and selected attributes set according to 
the supplied data, and will include error messages where validation 
fails.  This means you can have TT2 templates that just say:

    <h1>My form</h1>
    some instructions here
    [% form %]

The user data is held in the results object when you do a 
$form->validate, so it gets discarded when $results goes out of scope, 
but the idea is that you store a form manager object in class data of a 
Catalyst component, so it only needs to be constructed at server startup.

There is also a $form->confirm which generates a table of the values 
supplied, with hidden fields for each data value and confirm, edit and 
cancel buttons.

Bool is overloaded for results objects so that they return 
$results->success (as with Data::FormValidator objects); forms are false 
in a boolean context (although you can say defined($form) if that is 
what you want to test).

I am still fleshing out and tweaking the module but am already using it 
for a couple of web sites.  I hope to have a first version ready to 
upload to CPAN within a week or so.

Andrew

-- 
Andrew Ford,  Director    Pauntley Prints / Ford & Mason Ltd            
A.Ford at ford-mason.co.uk   South Wing Compton House                      
pauntley-prints.co.uk     Compton Green, Redmarley  Tel: +44 1531 829900
ford-mason.co.uk          Gloucester GL19 3JB       Fax: +44 1531 829901
refcards.com cronolog.org Great Britain          Mobile: +44 7785 258278

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