[Product-Developers] Re: Complex Forms in Plone, which technologies to use: z3cform, CMFForm, ... ?

Wed Aug 12 14:08:40 UTC 2009

Jean-Michel FRANCOIS wrote:
> Laurent Mignon a écrit :
>> Jean-Michel FRANCOIS wrote:
>>> Martin Aspeli a écrit :
>>>> Jean-Michel FRANCOIS wrote:
>>>>> Dylan Jay a écrit :
>>>>>> On 12/08/2009, at 1:11 AM, Jean-Michel FRANCOIS wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Hi,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I need to make a complex form this week. I need to do the same
>>>>>>> form as
>>>>>>> the contact advanced search inside thunderbird. For those who
>>>>>>> doesn't
>>>>>>> know it here is a screen shot:
>>>>>>> http://nsit.uchicago.edu/img/email/tbird-advanced-search.png
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> The form is built by the user. He can add form fields define
>>>>>>> 'where' to
>>>>>>> search, ...
>>>>>> Do you mean that you want an admin user to be able to change the
>>>>>> schema (fields) through a web UI?
>>>>>> If so I don't think z3cform is for you. That is purely a code based
>>>>>> way setting up a form.
>>>>>> You want PloneFormGen if you want a to email the result or store the
>>>>>> information in a simple table. Otherwise I believe dexterity has a
>>>>>> TTW
>>>>>> schema editing interface right? or at least planned to.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> My question is:
>>>>>>> * Could I use z3cform to do this ? I have tried it but I need to
>>>>>>> define
>>>>>>> a schema. But in my case, I don't know the schema ... it seems
>>>>>>> not the
>>>>>>> good way
>>>>>>> * CMF FormController. I know how to do it with this technology,
>>>>>>> but it
>>>>>>> seems very old and I want my product to be fashionned and have a
>>>>>>> good
>>>>>>> future.
>>>>>>> * By hand ? Coding every things and do not use any other
>>>>>>> technologies
>>>>>>> than browserview.
>>>>>>> * Any other idea ?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> -- 
>>>>>>> Cordialement,
>>>>>>> Jean-Michel FRANCOIS
>>>>>>> Makina-Corpus
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>> Product-Developers mailing list
>>>>>>> Product-Developers at lists.plone.org
>>>>>>> http://lists.plone.org/mailman/listinfo/product-developers
>>>>> No. I mean the user build the form. He is able to add or remove form
>>>>> field. What is a form field in this case: It is a set containing those
>>>>> things:
>>>>>
>>>>> A select input with all indexes as options.
>>>>> A select input with constraints as options.
>>>>> An input type text where the user put the value he wants to search
>>>>> for.
>>>>>
>>>>> The UI give the user the ability to add/remove as many form field
>>>>> as he
>>>>> wants throw two buttons: 'more' and 'fewer'.
>>>>>
>>>>> But you have answered at one question: z3cform seems not
>>>>> appropriate. It
>>>>> is better for 'static' forms.
>>>> I'm not sure. You can change the set of fields and widgets quite
>>>> easily in the update() method (or one of the methods it calls), e.g.
>>>> in response to something in the request.
>>>>
>>>> z3c.form would mainly give you fields, widget and validation. How you
>>>> construct the set of fields is up to you. The most common (and most
>>>> documented) pattern is to use an interface, but zope.schema fields can
>>>> exist without an interface and forms can be constructed without a
>>>> context.
>>>>
>>>> But you should expect to spend a few days figuring out z3c.form. I'm
>>>> not aware of any documentation or examples that cover your use case.
>>>>
>>>> Martin
>>>>
>>> Yes I have started doing some codes to learn z3cform. The documentation
>>> is very verbose but I have found a way of doing, you can find the
>>> code here:
>>> http://plone.pastebin.com/m5590d336
>>>
>>> The idea: using subforms and the more and fewer buttons will be
>>> javascript + css effects that display or not the fields.
>>>
>>> This code seems pretty good to me but failed with this error:
>>> AttributeError: 'SearchForm' object has no attribute 'actions' .
>>> It happens if I define the update method in the global search form. I
>>> don't understand I m calling the upper class, so no differences. If
>>> someone can help me on this, I would be glade. The complete trace is
>>> here: http://plone.pastebin.com/m4f71b339
>> Update your searchForm before updating subforms. During subform
>> update, the subform try to access the actions defined by parentForm.
>> you can modify your code with:
>>
>>     def update(self):
>>         super(SearchForm, self).update()
>>         for i in range(NUM_FIELDS):
>>             setattr(self, 'criteria-%s'%i,
>>                     CriteriaForm(self.context, self.request, self))
>>             getattr(self, 'criteria-%s'%i).update()
>> or
>>     def update(self):
>>         super(SearchForm, self).updateActions()
>>         for i in range(NUM_FIELDS):
>>             setattr(self, 'criteria-%s'%i,
>>                     CriteriaForm(self.context, self.request, self))
>>             getattr(self, 'criteria-%s'%i).update()
>>         super(SearchForm, self).update()
>>
>> Since the update on parentForm call updatActions, I've the feeling
>> that the first way is the right way
>>> Now I m sure z3cform will fit with my needs.
>>>
>>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Product-Developers mailing list
>> Product-Developers at lists.plone.org
>> http://lists.plone.org/mailman/listinfo/product-developers
> Thank you for the help, it fix the problem, but the documentation of
> z3cform.subform explicitly show the way I was doing ... so may be
> updating the documentation will be nice.
> 
> The code has been cleaned up a bit by using a list to store sub forms
> and I have also past the part of the documentation of z3c.form.subform:
> http://plone.pastebin.com/m5db665e5
> 
The example doesn't use subform.EditSubForm as base class for CarForm 
but form.EditForm. So a CarForm instance is not a subform but a simple 
form....

In your code you use subform.EditSubFrom as baseclass for your 
CriteriaForm ...

That's the difference

> I don't know if this is a bug coming from z3c.form or plone integration
> but It may need to be said somewhere... I have lost about one hour on
> this ...
> 