Override default Zend_Form element renderer with custom HTML template? - php

Question

I'm dissatisfied with the way Zend_Form renders form elements by default, and want to override it for all forms produced by instantiating a helper class I have that inherits from Zend_Form to take care of some things that I do on all of my forms.
The changes I want to make seem more complicated than is reasonable/possible with decorators, so I'd like to use a custom HTML template to accomplish this, where I get to plug form values into a custom HTML snippet.
How can I set all HTML elements rendered by my class to use an HTML template? And what properties/functions should I call from the template to get the stuff Zend_Form renders by default? Lastly, I would prefer to do this without having to manually set the template on each input element I create in my code.

Answer 1

You can extend the defualt Zend_Form class with your own Custom_Form class. In the init() method overwrite the default element decorators. Here my code snippet:
//class Custom_Form extends Zend_Form
public function init()
{
$this->setElementDecorators(
array(array('ViewScript', array('viewScript' => '/controller_name/forms/fields/input-text.phtml'))),
array('email', 'firstname', 'lastname')
);
}

Answer 2

I've done my share of coding with ZF1 and the best way I found to render nice forms was to use Twitter Bootstrap along with it.
Check the following links to see if that's also a satisfactory solution for you too:
how to use the twitter bootstrap framework in a zend framework 1 application?
http://twitter.github.io/bootstrap/

Answer 3

I wound up using a custom viewscript that I genericized to work with arbitrary forms.
Using this approach, I was able to do the following things:
Add an asterisk after the label of required form elements
Group inputs and errors together in one div, so that when I float the labels to the left things still line up
Add a special class to erroring inputs so I can highlight them
Change certain error messages to include the name of the element instead of "Value"
Pass a text note along with the form elements to be displayed under the input
Not wrap labels and inputs in special elements
Some of these things are impossible without a viewscript, and some are just a pain to implement. I think this solution will be much more flexible for me going forward.
In my helper class' render() function:
$view = new Zend_View();
$view->setBasePath(SRC_ROOT . "/templates/forms");
$this->setDecorators(array(array('ViewScript', array('viewScript' => 'viewscript.php'))));
And here's my viewscript:
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/styles.css" />
<form id="<?php echo $this->element->html_id ?>" class="<?php echo $this->element->html_class ?>" enctype="application/x-www-form-urlencoded" action="" method="post">
<?php foreach($this->element as $element) { ?>
<?php
$decorators = $element->getDecorators();
if(isset($decorators["Zend_Form_Decorator_Label"])) {
$label = $element->getLabel();
} else {
$label = "";
}
if($element->isRequired() === true) {
$label .= " *";
}
?>
<label class="label" for="<?php echo $element->getName(); ?>"><?php echo $label; ?></label>
<div class="formInput">
<?php
// Add the error class to make the form inputs highlight in red
if($element->hasErrors()) {
$attribs = $element->getAttribs();
if(!isset($attribs["class"])) {
$attribs["class"] = "";
}
$attribs["class"] .= " inputError";
$element->setAttribs($attribs);
}
// Print the input using Zend_Form's own mechanisms
$element->setDecorators(array('ViewHelper')); // Removes all decorators (labels, etc.)
$v = new Zend_View();
$element->setView($v);
echo $element->render();
if(isset($element->note)) {
echo "<p>{$element->note}</p>";
}
// Print the error messages
if($element->hasErrors()) {
$errors = $element->getMessages();
?>
<ul class="errors <?php echo sizeof($errors) == 1 ? "noDecorations" : "" ?>">
<?php
foreach($errors as $error => $message) {
// Custom error messages
if($error === "isEmpty") {
$message = $element->getLabel() . " cannot be empty";
} ?>
<li><?php echo $message ?></li>
<?php } ?>
</ul>
<?php } ?>
</div>
<div style="float: clear;"></div>
<?php } ?>
</form>