I've been struggling with forms all day.
Here are the issues I've run into:
1) There is no way to manually insert the hidden form values with
FORM. This should be an option, so people can customize the layout of
their forms better.
2) We need an ability to say what fields to NOT use in the table we
reference in SQLFORM. This, again, would make it easier to make a form
for JUST what we need. It means then that if we customize the forms as
per custom forms page here: http://web2py.com/book/default/section/7/7
that these forms will not ever validate.
I'm writing a basic forum, and this is some of the code I've done.
db.define_table("sections", Field("name", 'string'), Field("desc",
'string'), Field("ordering", 'integer'))
db.define_table("forums", Field("name", 'string'), Field("desc",
'string'), Field("ordering", 'integer'), Field("section_id",
'reference sections'))
db.define_table("threads", Field("name", 'string',
requires=IS_NOT_EMPTY(), required=True), Field("author",
db.auth_user, default=user_id), Field("datetime", 'datetime'),
Field("forum_id", 'reference forums'))
db.define_table("posts", Field("subject", 'string'), Field("body",
'string', length = 10000, requires=IS_NOT_EMPTY()), Field("author",
db.auth_user, default=user_id), Field("datetime", 'datetime'),
Field('postcount', 'integer'), Field('thread_id', 'reference
threads'))
Notice the various fields in posts?
The generated HTML for an SQLFORM of db.posts:
<form action="" enctype="multipart/form-data" method="post"><table><tr
id="posts_subject__row"><td class="w2p_fl"><label for="posts_subject"
id="posts_subject__label">Subject: </label></td><td
class="w2p_fw"><input class="string" id="posts_subject" name="subject"
type="text" value="" /></td><td class="w2p_fc"></td></tr><tr
id="posts_body__row"><td class="w2p_fl"><label for="posts_body"
id="posts_body__label">Body: </label></td><td class="w2p_fw"><textarea
class="string" cols="100" id="posts_body" name="body" rows="20"
type="text" value=""></textarea></td><td class="w2p_fc"></td></tr><tr
id="posts_author__row"><td class="w2p_fl"><label for="posts_author"
id="posts_author__label">Author: </label></td><td
class="w2p_fw"><select class="reference auth_user" id="posts_author"
name="author"><option value=""></option><option selected="selected"
value="1">Tyler Laing (1)</option><option value="2">Tyler Laing (2)</
option></select></td><td class="w2p_fc"></td></tr><tr
id="posts_datetime__row"><td class="w2p_fl"><label
for="posts_datetime" id="posts_datetime__label">Datetime: </label></
td><td class="w2p_fw"><input class="datetime" id="posts_datetime"
name="datetime" type="text" value="" /></td><td class="w2p_fc"></td></
tr><tr id="posts_postcount__row"><td class="w2p_fl"><label
for="posts_postcount" id="posts_postcount__label">Postcount: </label></
td><td class="w2p_fw"><input class="integer" id="posts_postcount"
name="postcount" type="text" value="" /></td><td class="w2p_fc"></td></
tr><tr id="posts_thread_id__row"><td class="w2p_fl"><label
for="posts_thread_id" id="posts_thread_id__label">Thread Id: </label></
td><td class="w2p_fw"><input class="reference threads"
id="posts_thread_id" name="thread_id" type="text" value="" /></td><td
class="w2p_fc"></td></tr><tr id="submit_record__row"><td
class="w2p_fl"></td><td class="w2p_fw"><input type="submit"
value="Submit" /></td><td class="w2p_fc"></td></tr></table><div
class="hidden"><input name="_formkey" type="hidden" value="bafdb421-
c041-4172-9e54-f98cfbe8adb4" /><input name="_formname" type="hidden"
value="posts_create" /></div></form>
This is for a forum! I don't want to show thread_id, postcount,
datetime, or the author field. I've tried what people have suggested
of doing:
db.posts.author.writeable = False
db.posts.datetime.writeable = False
db.posts.postcount.writeable = False
db.posts.thread_id.writeable = False
The fields still show up. So as per the custom forms, I'm trying this:
<table>
{{=form.custom.begin}}
{{form.custom.widget.body.tag='textarea'}}
{{form.custom.widget.body._postprocessing = TEXTAREA._postprocessing}}
{{form.custom.widget.body.attributes["_rows"] = 20}}
{{form.custom.widget.body.attributes["_cols"] = 100}}
{{=TR(TD("Subject:"), TD(form.custom.widget.subject))}}
{{=TR(TD(form.custom.widget.body, _colspan=2))}}
{{=TR(TD(form.custom.submit))}}
{{=form.custom.end}}
</table>
While this changes the text input to a textarea, as I wanted, because
I lack the four fields above, it does not ever validate. I've looked,
and looked, and looked, through many posts, and many threads.
The forms part of web2py needs to be A) better documented B) actually
be useable for a real world use case(forums).
