Symfony2: Entity instantiation upon Form-Submit depending on user selection - forms

I'm working with Symfony2 to set up a form, where a Shelf-Entity can be edited.
A shelf contains a collection of Readable-Entities (e.g. Book, Magazine, etc. - all inherit from Readable).
The user has the possibility to add more Readable-Entities (the form is extended via JavaScript) and from a dropdown he can select the type of Readable he wants to add. Depending on the selected dropdown-value, different form fields are rendered. So far so good.
Now, when the form is submitted to the server, depending on the Readable-Type the user selected in the form, a different entity-type should be instantiated.
If I don't do anything, Symfony just instantiates the base class Readable (and not Book, Magazine, etc.).
How can I tell Symfony to instantiate the correct type of Readable depending on the selected value from the dropdown?
I tried with FormEvent-Listeners, but:
in PRE_SUBMIT I only get an array containing the "raw" form data with $event->getData(), i.e. no entities have been instatiated so far. However, at this stage, I still have access to value of the dropdown.
in SUBMIT the form data was already assigned to the appropriate entities. Also the new Readable was already instatiated with the base Readable-Class. But now, I cannot access anymore the value from the dropdown.
What is the correct way to do this?
EDIT
Added a minimal Code-Example for the Shelf FormType:
https://gist.github.com/anonymous/401495b701982adafb96
Code for infinite_form_polycollection:
https://gist.github.com/anonymous/b5f0ed10ca9c52177f01

Have you tried looking at this part of the doc? As "embedding a form" seems to fit your needs.

It seems that there was something wrong with the PHP-Files of the PolyCollection in the vendor-directory, because after removing everything related to the Infinite Form Bundle from the vendor-dir and reinstalling it with composer, everything is working now. But thanks for your efforts YoannCh

Related

Data in array collection shows empty when retrieving info

I'm creating a web app with symfony. I'm currently building the forms and as I've never used the ManyToMany relation I'm having some problem with retrieving the information.
The form I'm working with is this one:
The point is that when I'm retrieving the information of the array in the twig template, the data property inside the array shows empty, when there is Alumne's entities created. Let me show you.
Twig template (create page):
As you can see, what I pretend is to retrieve the info of every Alumne entity inside the array.
What I get doing this is:
The alumnes field is completly empty. But if I change the form Builder to this:
(I have also changed a little bit the twig template to make it more readable)
It works!
And as you can see there is an Alumne created.
The point is, as you can see, the select and option tag it creates is kinda ugly, I want to custom so it can fit the rest of the forms. So that's why I need a CollectionType in the builder and I don't know what I'm doing wrong. Also if I check the dump(form.alumnes.vars.data) it shows empty.
The issue here is, that you use the CollectionType instead of the EntityType. To load data from the Database into a form, you should use the EntityType https://symfony.com/doc/current/reference/forms/types/entity.html
If you leave the type out, Symfony will try to guess what form element to use and will (correctly) guess the EntityType

redux-form Wizard form with linked fields

I am building a multi-step application form with React. Having first built it with pure internal state I am now in the process of refactoring to Redux using redux-form.
Having used the example here as a basis: http://redux-form.com/5.2.5/#/examples/wizard?_k=oftw7a we have come a good way.
However the problem appears when i have two forms which are supposed to have the same value. During one of the pages i have a name field, that is supposed to be duplicated on the name field of the next page. The opposite should happen if you go back from the last page. Any tips to how this could be achieved?
Using the wizard, you are basically working with the exact same form that's split into multiple pieces. Ultimately it's the same form, because redux-form tracks them by name. It is how the library identifies the pieces of the same form - using the name.
form: 'wizard',
Here you can see that the exact same instance of the form will be shared throughout the pieces. fields work in a similar manner. Each field is defined as part of a form.
As long as you use the same field constants inside the fields object that you pass into the reduxForm function and as long as the value for form is the same, so that they use the same underlying form object, it should work for you just fine.
On one page you should pass in
export default reduxForm({
form: 'wizard',
fields : {
'fieldIWantOnBothPartsOfTheForm',
'someOtherFieldThatShouldOnlyBeHere',
},
...
And then on the other page:
export default reduxForm({
form: 'wizard',
fields : {
'fieldIWantOnBothPartsOfTheForm',
'thirdFieldHere',
},
...
Also, make sure you keep destroyOnUnmount equal to false if you want to navigate back-and-forth.
Hope that helps.

How can I get the Zend_Form object via the Zend_Form_Element child

I've built a Zend_Form_Decorator_Input class which extends Zend_Form_Decorator_Abstract, so that I could customize my form inputs -- works great. I ran into a problem in the decorate class, in trying to get the form name of the element, so as to built a unique id for each field (in case there are multiple forms with identical field names).
There is no method like this: Zend_Form_Element::getForm(); It seems Zend_Form_Decorator_Abstract doesn't have this ability either. Any ideas?
I don't think changing the id from the decorator is the right approach. At the time the decorator is called the element already has been rendered. Thus changing the id would have no effect to the source code. Additionally, as you already have pointed out, the relation between a form and its elements is unidirectional, i.e. (to my best knowledge) there is no direct way to access the form from the element.
So far the bad news.
The good news is, that there actually is a pretty easy solution to your problem: The Zend_Form option elementsBelongTo. It prevents that the same ID is assigned to two form elements that have the same name but belong to different forms:
$form1 = new Zend_Form(array('elementsBelongTo' => 'form1'));
$form1->addElement('Text', 'text1');
$form2 = new Zend_Form(array('elementsBelongTo' => 'form2'));
$form2->addElement('Text', 'text1');
Although both forms have a text field named 'text1', they have different ids: 'form1-text1' and 'form2-text1'. However, there is a major drawback to this: This also changes the name elements in such a way that they are in the format formname[elementname]. Therefore $this->getRequest()->getParam('formname') will return an associative array containing the form elements.

Drupal 7 - Hide certain form fields of a content edit form depending on the content data

In Drupal 7, is there a way to change the standard edit form for a content type based on a certain content?
For example:
I have a content type with a checkbox...once it it checked and the form is saved, I do not want this checkbox to be visible anymore...therefore based on the checkboxes value in the Database I want to hide form fields when showing the form.
I am building a small specific project site, where a company wants to add projects, and their customers are supposed to follow certain steps (upload some content, provide information etc.), and also should be able to check off certain requirements, and once these are checked off, they should not be visible/editable to them.
Also the displayed form fields should depend on an user's role, and then FURTHER be limited depending on the content's database entries.
Is there a module, which could achieve this behaviour? "rules" and "field/permissions" come close to what I need, but are not sufficient. Or did I just miss the option to change a form field's accessibility based on conditions?
What I need is some place to define a logic like "IF (VALUEOF(CHECKBOX_1) == TRUE) THEN DO_NOT_SHOW(CHECKBOX_1)"
hook_form_alter is the way to do this, as explained by Mihaela, but what options do you have inside that function?
If you want just to disable field (it will be visible, but user can't change it) you can do it like this:
$form['field_myfield']['#disabled'] = TRUE;
And if you want it to be hidden, but to keep value it has before editing the way to do that is:
$form['field_myfield']['#access'] = FALSE;
I.e. hiding it (somewhere I saw someone suggesting that):
hide($form['field_myfield']);
really hides the field, but after that, when form is saved this field has empty value, validation fails, etc, so that's not a good way to do this. Hiding makes sense only if you want to print separately that field later, at some other place.
function your_module_form_alter(&$form, &$form_state, $form_id){
switch($form_id) {
case 'nameOfTheNode_node_form':
//your code here. check the value from from_state.
break;
}
}
In this case, I use module Conditional Fields https://www.drupal.org/project/conditional_fields
For example: If my Dependees field has a value, Dependent field can be visible/invisible, enabled/disabled, required/optional, checked/unchecked

MVC Html.textbox/dropdown/whatever won't refresh on postback

OK, let's start with the Html.Textbox. It is supposed to contain text read from a file. The file read is based on what the user picks from a dropdown list.
The first time it is fine. The user picks a value from the dropdown list. The controller uses that value to read some text from a file, and returns that text to the view via the view model. Everything is fine.
THen the user picks another value from the dropdown list. The controller reads a new value from a file and returns it via the view model. Debugging to the LINE BEFORE THE HTML.TEXTBOX is set in the view shows that the model contains the correct value. However, the textbox itself still shows the PREVIOUS value when the page displays!
If I switch from Html.Textbox to a plain input, type="text" html control, everything works fine. That's not so hard, but the same thing happens with my dropdown list -- I can't set the selected value in code. It always reverts to whatever was chosen last. Rendering a "select" tag with a dynamically-generated option list is a pain. I would love to be able to use Html.Dropdown.
What am I missing here?? This is such a simple thing in webforms!
When you post a form, the values that are posted are put into ModelState. When the HtmlHelper renders an html iunput element, e.g. Html.TextBoxFor(x => x.FirstName), it'll search various locations to get the value for the textbox... ModelState is before ViewData.Model in the list of locations. So there for, the previously posted value will appear in your textbox.
To fix this you could clear the ModelState value or update the ModelState value. BUT I would kinda view that as a hacky way of getting around the problem.
The real issue has more to do with the flow of the posts and requests. I would personally look into that and maybe implement the PRG (Post Redirect Get) pattern.
HTHs,
Charles
Following on from what Charles/Charlino said:
Model binding updates the ModelState object, which contains validation and model binding errors that are collected during model binding.
Inside an action method, model binding has occurred already to update the model, and generated the ModelState object. If you now update the value on the model inside the action, you must also manually update the model state (since the helpers use it to generate their HTML). Below is an example:
model.CaptchaIsValid = CaptchaService.ValidateAndExpireCaptcha(model.CaptchaAttempt);
if (!model.CaptchaIsValid)
{
ModelState.AddModelError("CaptchaAttempt", "Incorrect - please try again");
}
// I'll clear the value on each attempt, to force them to re-enter a CAPTCHA.
model.CaptchaAttempt = string.Empty;
// Since I updated the model, I must create a new ValueProvider result...
ValueProviderResult clearedValue = new ValueProviderResult(
model.CaptchaAttempt,
model.CaptchaAttempt,
CultureInfo.CurrentCulture);
// ... and update the ModelState's value.
ModelState.SetModelValue("CaptchaAttempt", clearedValue);
The biggest issue I see here is that you are trying to do a postback within MVC. That model is really not supported, and is actually way more trouble than it is worth (as it seems you are finding out). I would recommend using Ajax to update the contents of the dropdown dynamically.