Add form to EE Module for front end processing

Question

I am trying to add a form on the front end so my users can use crud functionality and allowing me to add responsiveness to the form.

I have been pointed in the direction of an article and examples over at ee-recipes and this have given me a good starting point. But I need to add some validation to the process. Firstname and lastname are required as well as checks to so if the player being added is already in the system.

I have added a form and action and I am able to save the data into the database.

public function player_form() {

    // Build an array to hold the form's hidden fields
    $hidden_fields = array(
        "ACT" => $this->EE->functions->fetch_action_id( 'Clubmanager', 'create_club_player' )
    );

    $action_id = ee()->functions->fetch_action_id('Clubmanager', 'create_club_player');

    // Build an array with the form data
    $form_data = array(
        "action" => "{site_url}?ACT=$action_id",
        "id" => $this->EE->TMPL->form_id,
        "class" => $this->EE->TMPL->form_class,
        "hidden_fields" => $hidden_fields
    );

    // Fetch contents of the tag pair, ie, the form contents
    $tagdata = $this->EE->TMPL->tagdata;

    $form = $this->EE->functions->form_declaration($form_data) . 
    $tagdata . "</form>";

    return $form;
} 

public function create_club_player() {

    $firstname = $this->EE->input->post('firstname');
    $lastname = $this->EE->input->post('lastname');
    $knownas = $this->EE->input->post('knownas');
    //$club = $this->EE->input->post('club');
    $position = $this->EE->input->post('position');
    $dob = $this->EE->input->post('dob');
    $url_title = strtolower(str_replace("'", "",$firstname)).'-'. strtolower(str_replace("'", "",$lastname));

    $data = array(
                    'firstname' => $firstname,
                    'lastname' => $lastname,
                    'knownas' => $knownas,
                    'url_title' => $url_title,
                    'position' => $position,
                    'dob' => $dob
                );

    $this->EE->db->insert('tm_players', $data);

    $ret = $this->EE->functions->fetch_site_index();

    $data = array(
        'title' => 'Add Player',
        'content' => "Player added successfully",
        'link' => array($ret, "Back to site")
    );

    $this->EE->output->show_message($data); 

    //print_r( $_POST );
    //exit;
} 

I know that I need to use form validation for the name etc and have what I need already as part of the CP module but not sure how to put it all together especially when reloading the page if there are errors. I have seen a post like this one here. page reload after postback answer by @Adrian Macneil that references ee()->core->generate_page(). Are there any simple examples for me to try and follow

BACKGROUND Some more background information for you, should answer some questions. My site was originally built on CI and added bits here and there. I had a vision of integrating the site with EE but unfortunately it wasn't straight forward or so I was told.

I paid to get my football stats into EE and with that I lost a of functionality and didn't have the knowledge or money to fix that. I ran with EE for two years but it just couldn't cope the stats and how it pulled it all together. I got lucky and teammanager module was then available and I was able to change this slightly and just plugin my database tables from my CI site.

With EE there are many ways to build websites and I am sure there are better ways to use EE for me but I do not have the expertise and just have to try to get there myself somehow.

I have control panel access for updating and adding all information including a separate one for Club Admins to add player information. As most of my users use mobiles to visit the site and I want to try and push members to use the club admin feature I thought best way would be to have responsive design rather than mess with the CP CSS or try and build a mobile app.

Unless I am wrong the CP process for forms are different from building a form for front and this is the reason why I am asking this question. My form will also require a validation routine to check whether this player exists and also allow an override for different players with the same name. I have this code already but as I said the CP form and front end form are processed differently. Hopefully this clears some questions up.

And thanks for all comments.

Answer 1

Take a look at the Code Ignitor Validation Helper. You can use this within PHP on an EE template, it really is as easy as this (example from the CI Docs), just replacing $this with a reference to EE :

    function gmail_only($value){
        return ( stripos(strtolower($value), '@gmail.com') !== false );
    }

    ee()->load->helper(array('form', 'url'));

    ee()->load->library('form_validation');

    ee()->form_validation->set_rules('username', 'Username', 'required');
    ee()->form_validation->set_rules('password', 'Password', 'required');
    ee()->form_validation->set_rules('passconf', 'Password Confirmation', 'required');
    ee()->form_validation->set_rules('email', 'Email', 'required|valid_email|callback_gmail_only');

    if (ee()->form_validation->run() == FALSE)
    {
        //validation failed, back to form, show error messages!
    }
    else
    {
        //GREAT SUCCESS, do what you need to do!
    }

That is literally it, in the exampe there's a form with 4 fields, username, passwrod, password confirm and email. All are required and email needs to be a valid email too. You can even use custom validation callbacks for complex things (see the docs linked above for this too).

Edit: You also get the error's array when you run form validation, so you can use that to populate inline errors ect. as for routing what I tend to do is run the submission code on the same template as the form itself and post the form back to the current URL.

This way you can create your error array if validation fails, or a success message if it all worked out, then on the template where the form is displayed you can do an if ( count($errors) ) or something to detect if you're siaplying errors, if ( !empty($success) ) or similar to display a success message and just display the form if it's not a submission (errors and success are empty). No need for redirects.

PS> When it comes to EE, I am very much a 'roll your own' kind of guy. I find the extra work of creating modules, tag parsers and routing quite erronious especially if the function your developing has very little re-usability, i.e. a specifically crafted form for a specific client/website/page.

Answer 2

This is one solution I am working on, I had been looking over ee-recipes and Andrew Weaver has been giving me some code as well

Main Form

public function test_form() {

// Build an array to hold the form's hidden fields
$hidden_fields = array(
    "ACT" => ee()->functions->fetch_action_id( 'Clubmanager', 'action_form' ),
    "return" => ee()->TMPL->fetch_param('return')
);

// Build an array with the form data
$form_data = array(
    // Send form back to this url - the action must be the same as the form
    "action" => ee()->functions->create_url( ee()->uri->uri_string ), 
    "id" => ee()->TMPL->form_id,
    "class" => ee()->TMPL->form_class,
    "hidden_fields" => $hidden_fields
);

// Make sure errors is actually an array
if( ! is_array( self::$errors ) ) {
    self::$errors = array();
}

// Set up array to parse tagdata
$variables = array(
    "errors" => array( self::$errors ), // list of error messages
    // repopulate form with these variables
    "firstname" => isset( self::$formdata["firstname"] ) ? self::$formdata["firstname"] : "",
    "lastname" => isset( self::$formdata["lastname"] ) ?  self::$formdata["lastname"] : ""
);

// Fetch contents of the tag pair, ie, the form contents
$tagdata = ee()->TMPL->tagdata;

// Parse tagdata for errors/submitted values
$tagdata = ee()->TMPL->parse_variables_row( $tagdata, $variables );

// Create the form
$form = ee()->functions->form_declaration($form_data) . 
    $tagdata . 
    "</form>";

return $form;}

Action Form

 public function action_form() {

// use CI validation library to check submission
ee()->load->library('form_validation');
ee()->form_validation->set_rules('firstname', 'lang:firstname', 'required');
ee()->form_validation->set_rules('lastname', 'lang:lastname', 'required');

// Fetch data from the form
$firstname = ee()->input->post("firstname");
$lastname = ee()->input->post("lastname");

if(ee()->form_validation->run()==FALSE){
    self::$errors["error"] = ee()->form_validation->error_string();
}


// If there are no errors, redirect to the "return" url
if( empty( self::$errors ) ) {
    ee()->functions->redirect( ee()->functions->create_url( ee()->input->get_post('return') ) );
}

// Store submitted data to static formdata array
self::$formdata = array(
    "firstname" => $firstname,
    "lastname" => $lastname
);

// Continue loading this page
ee()->core->generate_page();}

Hopefully this with what has been suggested I will get there.