Re: Re: FormBuilder and QuickForm_Controller

On Tue, 8 Mar 2005 11:52:10 +0000, Edward Grace <ej.grace@imperial.ac.uk> wrote: > Dear Markus, > > > $form =& $fb->getForm(); > > Many thanks, I was close, but not quite there. I had left out the "&" in > $form =& $fb->getForm(), hence it clobbered the existing form. > > Since what I want to do is proving so tricky, I'm beginning to think I am > approaching the problem poorly. I want to do something which I imagine is > quite common. If a select box in the FormBuilder form doesn't contain an > option I want then I would like the ability to add another option and > continue entering the record being edited. For example the following > heirachy illustrates what I would like to do > > Person : links to Institution > Institution : links to Country > Country : links to Continent > Continent > > When editing "Person" and the select box does not have the appropriate > "Institution" entry, I would go to an intermediate form and add the > institution. If the institution form does not have the approprate country > selection I then go to the intermediate country form. And so on... > > I can see that it can be done in the preProcessForm() stage, by checking the > relevent fields and optionally redirecting to another page which would allow > one to add the new record. However using the QFC seemed cleaner as it looked > like it could act as a wrapper for the forms and control the flow between > them. > > I've now hit my head against the wall, mixing QFC and FormBuilder seems to be > too hard. The fact that few people seem to be doing it indicates to me that > there is a better way to do this. > > Do you have any suggestions? I'm about to evaluate the "redirect" option. > > > Of course I'm in no way related to this guy, no-no... (ahem). > > Of course. ;-) > Hey, great timing. I *just* released a new version of FormBuilder with the linkNewValue option, which adds a "--New Value--" option to the bottom of link selects and sticks a hidden form beneath the select with the form for the linked table which is shown when you select "--New Value--". I've currently set it up to only deal with 1 layer, but the code should be perfectly capable of doing nested "--New Value--" forms within the previous one. Of course, this will slow down your page considerably depending on the # of links in the tables. Check it out and let me know: 1) if it works for you and 2) if you have any suggestions. As usual, docs are in the wiki and within the source. -- Justin Patrin