Creating a New Form Field

From IHRIS Wiki

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>

I2CE_FormField_STRING_CAP

We need to create a PHP class to handle the client-side validation of our capitalized field. The field we want has input which is a one line string, so we will subclass the existing one. We do this as follows:

cd CapField/lib
gedit I2CE_FormField_STRING_CAP.php

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

public class I2CE_FormField_STRING_CAP extends I2CE_FormField_STRING_LINE  {
   /**
    *This is the method to create the input element for the capitalized input string
    * @param DOMNode $node  The node that we wish to add out input element to
    * @param I2CE_Tempalte $template.  The page template object that we are working in
    * @parma DOMNode $form_node  The node from the html template file that requested this form field be displayed
    */
   public function processDOMEditable($node,$template,$form_node) {
       $ele_name = $this->getHTMLName();  //this gets the name of the input element which is used for the GET and POST variables
       $template->addHeaderLink('mootools.js'); //makes sure that the mootools javascript library is avaiable to us
       $element = $template->createElement(  //creates the input element that we will add 
             "input", 
             array( 
                   "name" => $ele_name, 
                   "id" => $ele_name, 
                   "type" => "text", 
                   "onblur"=> "this.setValue(this.getValue().capitalize());"
                   "value" => $this->getDBValue() 
                   ) );
       $this->setElement($element);  //registers the input element that we created
       $node->appendChild( $element);  //add the input element node we just created to the node it needs to be under
   }

} </source>

Making the form field available

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.

Modifying the Template

Linking in Mootools