Creating a New Form Field

This tutorial applies to version 4.0 of the iHRIS Suite.

In this tutorial, we will create new form field data type. This form field will be a one line string which is capitalized. The capitalization will be enforced on the server-side as well as the client-side via java-script. We will wrap all of this into a module, CapField so that it can be shared easily.

Creating the Module

In one of your module directories (e.g. your site's modules directory) do the following:

mkdir CapField
mkdir CapField/templates
mkdir CapField/lib
gedit CapField/CapField.xml

and add in the following lines: <source lang='xml'>

<?xml version="1.0"?>       

<!DOCTYPE I2CEConfiguration SYSTEM "I2CE_Configuration.dtd"> <I2CEConfiguration name='CapField'>

 <metadata>
   <displayName>Capitalized Field</displayName>   
   <category>System Component</category>
   <description>Provides an always capitalized field</description>
   <creator>Intrahealth Informatics</creator>
   <email>hris@capacityproject.org</email>
   <version>4.0.0</version> 
   <requirement name='i2ce'>
     <atleast version='4.0'/>
     <lessThan version='4.1'/>
   </requirement>
   <priority>200</priority>
   <path name='classes'>
     <value>./lib</value>
   </path>
   <path name='templates'>
     <value>./templates</value>
   </path>
 </metadata>
 <configurationGroup name='CapField' path='/'>
 </configuratioGroup>

<I2CEConfiguration> </source>

Javascript

iHRIS uses version 1.2 of the mootools javascript library. Mootools has a handy capitalization function that we will incorporate into our form field so that on a "blur" the input element will capitalize. There are two parts two this: changing the html template file, and linking in the mootools library when it is needed.