Form Controls

class Atk4\Ui\Form\Control

Agile UI dedicates a separate namespace for the Form Controls. Those are quite simple components that present themselves as input controls: line, select, checkbox.

Relationship with Form

All Form Control Decorators can be integrated with Form which will facilitate collection and processing of data in a form. Form Control decorators can also be used as stand-alone controls.

Stand-alone use

Atk4\Ui\Form\Control::set()

Atk4\Ui\Form\Control::jsInput()

Add any form control to your application like this:

$control = Line::addTo($app);

You can set default value and interact with a form control using JavaScript:

$control->set('hello world');

$button = \Atk4\Ui\Button::addTo($app, ['check value']);
$button->on('click', new \Atk4\Ui\Js\JsExpression('alert(\'control value is: \' + [])', [$control->jsInput()->val()]));

When used stand-alone, Form\Controls will produce a basic HTML (I have omitted id=):

<div class="ui input">
    <input name="line" type="text" placeholder="" value="hello world">
</div>

Using in-form

property Atk4\Ui\Form\Control::$form

Form Control objects can be associated with a Form object.

Form Control can also be used inside a form like this:

$form = \Atk4\Ui\Form::addTo($app);
$control = $form->addControl('name', new \Atk4\Ui\Form\Control\Line());

If you execute this example, you’ll notice that Field now has a label, it uses full width of the page and the following HTML is now produced:

<div class="field">
    <label for="atk_admin_form_generic_name_input">Name</label>
    <div id="atk_admin_form_generic_name" class="ui input">
        <input name="name" type="text" placeholder="" id="atk_admin_form_generic_name_input" value="">
    </div>
</div>

The markup that surronds the button which includes Label and formatting is produced by Form\Layout, which does draw some of the information from the Form Control itself.

Using in Form Layouts

Form may have multiple Form Layouts and that’s very useful if you need to split up form into multiple Tabs or detach form control groups or even create nested layouts:

$form = \Atk4\Ui\Form::addTo($app);
$tabs = \Atk4\Ui\Tabs::addTo($form, [], ['AboveControls']);
\Atk4\Ui\View::addTo($form, ['ui' => 'divider'], ['AboveControls']);

$formPage = Form\Layout::addTo($tabs->addTab('Basic Info'), ['form' => $form]);
$formPage->addControl('name', new \Atk4\Ui\Form\Control\Line());

$formPage = Form\Layout::addTo($tabs->addTab('Other Info'), ['form' => $form]);
$formPage->addControl('age', new \Atk4\Ui\Form\Control\Line());

$form->onSubmit(function (Form $form) {
    return $form->entity->get('name') . ' has age ' . $form->entity->get('age');
});

This is further explained in documentation for Form\Layout class, however if you do plan on adding your own form control types, it’s important that you extend it properly:

• Generic (abstract, extends View) - Use this if form control is NOT based on <input>

• Input (abstract, extends Generic) - Easiest since it already implements <input> and various ways to attach button to the input with markup of Fomantic-UI form control.

Hints

property Atk4\Ui\Form\Control::$hint

When Form Control appears in a Form, then you can specify a Hint also. It appears below the form control and although it intends to be “extra info” or “extra help” due to current limitation of Fomantic-UI the only way we can display hint is using a gray bubble. In the future version of Agile UI we will update to use a more suitable form control.

Hint can be specified either inside Form Control decorator seed or inside the Field::ui attribute:

$form->addControl('title', [], ['values' => ['Mr', 'Mrs', 'Miss'], 'hint' => 'select one']);

$form->addControl('name', ['hint' => 'Full Name Only']);

Text will have HTML characters escaped. You may also specify hint value as an object:

$form->addControl('name', ['hint' => new \Atk4\Ui\Text(
    'Click <a href="https://example.com/" target="_blank">here</a>'
)]);

or you can inject a view with a custom template:

$form->addControl('name', ['hint' => ['template' => new \Atk4\Ui\HtmlTemplate(
    'Click <a href="https://example.com/" target="_blank">here</a>'
)]]);

Read only and disabled form controls

property Atk4\Ui\Form\Control::$readOnly

Read only form controls can be seen in form, can be focused and will be submitted, but we don’t allow to change their value.

property Atk4\Ui\Form\Control::$disabled

Disabled form controls can be seen in form, cannot be focused and will not be submitted. And of course we don’t allow to change their value. Disabled form controls are used for read only model fields for example.

Relationship with Model

In the examples above, we looked at how to create Form Control Decorator object explicitly. The most common use-case in large application is the use with Models. You would need a model, such as Country model as well as Persistence $db:

class Country extends \Atk4\Data\Model
{
    public $table = 'country';

    protected function init(): void
    {
        parent::init();

        $this->addField('name', ['actual' => 'nicename', 'required' => true, 'type' => 'string']);
        $this->addField('sys_name', ['actual' => 'name', 'system' => true]);

        $this->addField('iso', ['caption' => 'ISO', 'required' => true, 'type' => 'string']);
        $this->addField('iso3', ['caption' => 'ISO3', 'required' => true, 'type' => 'string']);
        $this->addField('numcode', ['caption' => 'ISO Numeric Code', 'type' => 'integer', 'required' => true]);
        $this->addField('phonecode', ['caption' => 'Phone Prefix', 'type' => 'integer']);
    }
}

To create a form, the following is sufficient:

$form = \Atk4\Ui\Form::addTo($app);
$form->setEntity(new Country($db);

The above will populate fields from model into the form automatically. You can use second argument to Form::setEntity() to indicate which fields to display or rely on field_visibility.

When Form controls are populated, then Form::controlFactory is consulted to make a decision on how to translate Model Field into Form Control Decorator.

The rules are rather straightforward but may change in future versions of Agile UI:

• if enum is defined, use Form\Control\Dropdown

• consult Form::$typeToDecorator property for type-to-seed association

• type=password will use Form\Control\Password

You always have an option to explicitly specify which field you would like to use:

$model->addField('long_text', ['ui' => ['rorm' => \Atk4\Ui\Form\Control\TextArea::class]]);

It is recommended however, that you use type when possible, because types will be universally supported by all components:

$model->addField('long_text', ['type' => 'text']);

Note

All forms will be associated with a model. If form is not explicitly linked with a model, it will create a ProxyModel and all form controls will be created automatically in that model. As a result, all Form Control Decorators will be linked with Model Fields.

Link to Model Field

property Atk4\Ui\Form\Control::$field

Form decorator defines $field property which will be pointing to a field object of a model, so technically the value of the field would be read from $decorator->entityField->get().

Line Input Form control

class Atk4\Ui\Form\Control\Input

Implements View for presenting Input form controls. Based around https://fomantic-ui.com/elements/input.html.

Similar to other views, Input has various properties that you can specify directly or inject through constructor. Those properties will affect the look of the input element. For example, icon property:

property Atk4\Ui\Form\Control\Input::$icon

property Atk4\Ui\Form\Control\Input::$iconLeft

Adds icon into the input form control. Default - icon will appear on the right, while leftIcon will display icon on the left.

Here are few ways to specify icon to an Input/Line:

// compact
Line::addTo($page, ['icon' => 'search']);

// type-hinting friendly
$line = new \Atk4\Ui\Form\Control\Line();
$line->icon = 'search';
$page->add($line);

// using class factory
Line::addTo($page, ['icon' => 'search']);

The ‘icon’ property can be either string or a View. The string is for convenience and will be automatically substituted with new Icon($icon). If you wish to be more specific and pass some arguments to the icon, there are two options:

// compact
$line->icon = ['search', 'class.big' => true];

// type-hinting friendly
$line->icon = new Icon('search');
$line->icon->addClass('big');

To see how Icon interprets new Icon(['search', 'class.big' => true]), refer to Icon.

Note

View’s constructor will map received arguments into object properties, if they are defined or addClass() if not. See View::setProperties.

property Atk4\Ui\Form\Control\Input::$placeholder

Will set placeholder property.

property Atk4\Ui\Form\Control\Input::$loading

Set to “left” or “right” to display spinning loading indicator.

property Atk4\Ui\Form\Control\Input::$label

property Atk4\Ui\Form\Control\Input::$labelRight

Convert text into Label and insert it into the form control.

property Atk4\Ui\Form\Control\Input::$action

property Atk4\Ui\Form\Control\Input::$actionLeft

Convert text into Button and insert it into the form control.

To see various examples of form controls and their attributes see demos/form-control/.

Integration with Form

When you use Form::addControl() it will create ‘Form Control Decorator’

JavaScript on Input

Atk4\Ui\Form\Control\Input::jsInput([$event[, $otherChain]])

Input class implements method jsInput which is identical to View::js, except that it would target the INPUT element rather then the whole form control:

$control->jsInput(true)->val(123);

onChange event

Atk4\Ui\Form\Control\Input::onChange($action)

It’s preferable to use this short-hand version of on(‘change’, ‘input’, $action) method. $action argument can be JS expression or PHP callback function.

// simple string
$f1 = $form->addControl('f1');
$f1->onChange(\Atk4\Ui\Js\JsExpression('console.log(\'f1 changed\')'));

// callback
$f2 = $form->addControl('f2');
$f2->onChange(function () {
    return new \Atk4\Ui\Js\JsExpression('console.log(\'f2 changed\')');
});

// Calendar form control - wraps in function call with arguments date, text and mode
$c1 = $form->addControl('c1', new \Atk4\Ui\Form\Control\Calendar(['type' => 'date']));
$c1->onChange(\Atk4\Ui\Js\JsExpression('console.log(\'c1 changed: \' + date + \', \' + text + \', \' + mode)'));

Dropdown

class Atk4\Ui\Form\Control\Dropdown

Dropdown uses Fomantic-UI Dropdown (https://fomantic-ui.com/modules/dropdown.html). A Dropdown can be used in two ways:

1. Set a Model to $model property. The Dropdown will render all records of the model that matches the model’s conditions.

2. You can define $values property to create custom Dropdown items.

Usage with a Model

A Dropdown is not used as default Form Control decorator ($model->hasOne() uses Form\Control\Lookup), but in your Model, you can define that UI should render a Field as Dropdown. For example, this makes sense when a hasOne() relationship only has a very limited amount (like 20) of records to display. Dropdown renders all records when the paged is rendered, while Lookup always sends an additional request to the server. Form\Control\Lookup on the other hand is the better choice if there is lots of records (like more than 50).

To render a model field as Dropdown, use the ui property of the field:

$model->addField('someField', ['ui' => ['form' => [\Atk4\Ui\Form\Control\Dropdown::class]]]);

Customizing how entities are displayed in Dropdown

As default, Dropdown will use the $model->idField as value, and $model->titleField as title for each menu item. If you want to customize how a record is displayed and/or add an icon, Dropdown has the Form::renderRowFunction() to do this. This function is called with each model record and needs to return an array:

$dropdown->renderRowFunction = function (Model $entity) {
    return [
        'title' => $entity->getTitle() . ' (' . $entity->get('subtitle') . ')',
    ];
};

You can also use this function to add an Icon to a record:

$dropdown->renderRowFunction = function (Model $entity) {
    return [
        'title' => $entity->getTitle() . ' (' . $entity->get('subtitle') . ')',
        'icon' => $entity->get('value') > 100 ? 'money' : 'coins',
    ];
};

If you’d like to even further adjust How each item is displayed (e.g. complex HTML and more model fields), you can extend the Dropdown class and create your own template with the complex HTML:

class MyDropdown extends \Atk4\Ui\Dropdown
{
    public $defaultTemplate = 'my_dropdown.html';

    /**
     * Used when a custom callback is defined for row rendering. Sets
     * values to item template and appends it to main template
     */
    protected function _addCallBackRow($row, $key = null)
    {
        $res = ($this->renderRowFunction)($row, $key);
        $this->_tItem->set('value', (string) $res['value']);
        $this->_tItem->set('title', $res['title']);
        $this->_tItem->set('someOtherField', $res['someOtherField]);
        $this->_tItem->set('someOtherField2', $res['someOtherField2]);
        // add item to template
        $this->template->dangerouslyAppendHtml('Item', $this->_tItem->renderToHtml());
    }
}

With the according renderRowFunction:

function (Model $entity) {
    return [
        'title' => $entity->getTitle(),
        'icon' => $entity->value > 100 ? 'money' : 'coins',
        'someOtherField' => $entity->get('SomeOtherField'),
        'someOtherField2' => $entity->get('SomeOtherField2'),
    ];
}

Of course, the tags title, icon, someOtherField and someOtherField2 need to be set in my_dropdown.html.

Usage with $values property

If not used with a model, you can define the Dropdown values in $values array. The pattern is value => title:

$dropdown->values = [
    'decline' => 'No thanks',
    'postprone' => 'Maybe later',
    'accept' => 'Yes, I want to!',
];

You can also define an Icon right away:

$dropdown->values = [
    'tag' => ['Tag', 'icon' => 'tag'],
    'globe' => ['Globe', 'icon' => 'globe'],
    'registered' => ['Registered', 'icon' => 'registered'],
    'file' => ['File', 'icon' => 'file'],
];

If using $values property, you can also use the Form::renderRowFunction(), though there usually is no need for it. If you use it, use the second parameter as well, its the array key:

function (string $value, $key) {
    return [
        'value' => $key,
        'title' => strtoupper($value),
    ];
}

Dropdown Settings

There’s a bunch of settings to influence Dropdown behavior.

property Atk4\Ui\Form\Control\Dropdown::$empty

Define a string for the empty option (no selection). Standard is non-breaking space symbol.

property Atk4\Ui\Form\Control\Dropdown::$dropdownOptions

Here you can pass an array of Fomantic-UI dropdown options (https://fomantic-ui.com/modules/dropdown.html#/settings) e.g.:

$dropdown = new Dropdown(['dropdownOptions' => [
    'selectOnKeydown' => false,
]]);

property Atk4\Ui\Form\Control\Dropdown::$multiple

If set to true, multiple items can be selected in Dropdown. They will be sent comma separated (value1,value2,value3) on form submit.

By default Dropdown will save values as comma-separated string value in data model, but it also supports model fields with array type. See this example from Model class init method:

$exprModel = $this->ref('Expressions');
$this->addField('expressions', [
    'type' => 'json',
    'required' => true,
    'ui' => [
        'form' => [
            \Atk4\Ui\Form\Control\Dropdown::class,
            'multiple' => true,
            'model' => $exprModel,
        ],
        'table' => [
            'Labels',
            'values' => $exprModel->getTitles(),
        ],
    ],
]);

DropdownCascade

class Atk4\Ui\Form\Control\DropdownCascade

DropdownCascade input are extend from Dropdown input. They rely on cascadeFrom and reference property. For example, it could be useful when you need to narrow a product selection base on a category and a sub category. User will select a Category from a list, then sub category input will automatically load sub category values based on user category selection. Same with product list values based on sub category selection and etc.

property Atk4\Ui\Form\Control\DropdownCascade::$cascadeFrom

This property represent an input form control, mostly another Dropdown or DropdownCascade form control. The list values of this form control will be build base off the selected value of cascadeFrom input.

property Atk4\Ui\Form\Control\DropdownCascade::$reference

This property represent a model hasMany reference and should be an hasMany reference of the cascadeFrom input model. In other word, the model that will generated list value for this dropdown input is an hasMany reference of the cascadeFrom input model.

Assume that each data model are defined and model Category has many Sub-Category and Sub-Category has many Product:

$form = \Atk4\Ui\Form::addTo($app);
$form->addControl('category_id', [Dropdown::class, 'model' => new Category($db)]);
$form->addControl('sub_category_id', [DropdownCascade::class, 'cascadeFrom' => 'category_id', 'reference' => Category::hinting()->fieldName()->subCategories]);
$form->addControl('product_id', [DropdownCascade::class, 'cascadeFrom' => 'sub_category_id', 'reference' => SubCategory::hinting()->fieldName()->products]);

Lookup

class Atk4\Ui\Form\Control\Lookup

Lookup input is also based on Fomantic-UI dropdown module but with ability to dynamically request server for data it’s data value.

When clicking on a Lookup form control, it will send a query to server and start building it’s list value. Typing into the input form control will reload list value according to search criteria.