Solspace composer template if field_type = file

Question

I want to change the output of the standard file upload field with something similar to "Whipping File Inputs Into Shape with Bootstrap 3". I am using the following conditional in my Solspace Freeform Pro composer template in an attempt to change the output for file upload field types:

{composer:fields}
{if composer:field_output}
                    {if composer:field_type == 'nonfield_captcha'}
                        {if freeform:captcha}
                                {freeform:captcha}<br />
                                <input type="text" name="captcha" value="" size="20" maxlength="20" style="width:140px;" />
                        {/if}

                     {if:elseif composer:field_type == 'file'}

                          <span class="btn btn-default btn-file">
                              Browse {composer:field_output}
                          </span>

                    {if:else}

                        {composer:field_output}

                    {/if}
                {/if}
{/composer:fields}

The if:elseif field type "file" statement doesn't seem to work in the template and has no effect in the output when the form is rendered:

{if:elseif composer:field_type == "file"}
    <span class="btn btn-default btn-file">
      Browse {composer:field_output}
    </span>
{if:else}
....

To check if there is something wrong with my statement, I changed "file" to "text". The conditional then worked and wrapped all text inputs in the <span> mark-up. So the conditional statement itself appears to work correctly - just not for field_type "file" though.

If there some special statement/conditional that I'm missing to be able to control the output of field_type = "file"?

Version Info:

ExpressionEngine: 2.10.1
Freeform Pro: 4.2.3

Answer 1

I don't know Composer at all...

This would be comment if it weren't going to be so long.

OK, so let's debug. I'm not sure if this is a production template. If so, holy crap-a-rolla, make a duplicate of the template in question, and set it to only-view-able by Super Admins. Work with that template and leave production alone. If this template is totally in dev-mode, ignore most of this paragraph. The next important part is to set PHP parsing on output for this template.

Next, let's see what we're getting from {composer:field_type}.

{composer:fields}
    {if composer:field_output}
        <?php
        var_dump('{composer:field_type}');
        ?>
    {/if}
{/composer:fields}

What is the outcome of that var_dump() for the fields that you expect to be {composer:field_type} as "file" ?

I've run into many issues where the EE parsing engine ends up outputting a weird value for something like a string like file ... it sometimes ends up as a a string with (made up example):

string(15) "file"

Something seem wrong there :P ? Are there 15 characters in the string file?

Report back and I'll apply some more sleuthing if I can help.