Beth Granter

Freelance digital consultant for charities


Zend Form – custom decorators


So I’m learning PHP and Zend Framework and MVC stuff. And I just figured out how to do a custom decorator on Zend_Form to change the way the form is written to HTML. The default puts each element label and input box into dd and dl tags. I just wanted to put each element in a div, with the input box on the same line as the label. There may be better ways to do this, but this is what I put in the IndexController.php file:

$form = new Zend_Form(array(
    'elementDecorators'=>array(
       'ViewHelper',
       array(
          'Description',
          array(
             'tag'=>'div',
             'class'=>'help'
          )
       ),
       'Errors',
       array('Label'),
       array(
          'HtmlTag',
           array(
              'tag'=>'div',
              'class'=>'field'
           )
        )
    ),
    'decorators'=>array(
        'FormElements',
        array(
          'HtmlTag',
          array('tag' => '<div>')
        ),
        'Form',
     ),
    'method' => 'post',
    'action' =>'/url/to/form',
    'elements' => array(
        'name' => array('text', array(
            'label' => 'Name:'
        )),
        'subject' => array('text', array(
            'label' => 'Subject:'
         )),
        'submit' => array('submit', array(
            'label' => 'Add',
        ))
    ),
 ));
 $form->submit->removeDecorator('Label');
 return $form;
}
 public function formAction()
 {
      $this->view->form = $form;
 }

The $form->submit->removeDecorator(‘Label’) bit removes the extra ‘Add’ from the submit button.

Then you just put
echo $this->form;
in your form.phtml

(This form does nothing)

This results in HTML like:

<form method="post" action="/route/to/form">
   <div>
      <div class="field">
         <label for="name" class="optional">Name:</label>
         <input type="text" name="subject" id="subject" value="">
      </div>
      <div class="field">
          <label for="subject" class="optional">Subject:</label>
          <input type="text" name="subject" id="subject" value="">
      </div>
      <div class="field">
           <input name="submit" id="submit" value="Add" type="submit">
      </div>
   </div>
</form>

Instead of the default dd and dl layed out form.

12 responses to “Zend Form – custom decorators”

  1. Hi,

    Nice tutorial!! I’ve tried sticking with Zend’s default dt/dd tags for a ‘Date of Birth’ select tag group (Month-Day-Year). What I’m trying to create is like this:

    DOB:

    Jan
    Feb

    01
    02

    1994
    1993

    The closest solution that I got is the reverse of it:

    Jan
    Feb

    01
    02

    1994
    1993

    DOB:

    by adding a select element like this (month only):

    $this->addElement(‘select’, ‘birthday_month’,

    array(

    ‘multioptions’ => $this->_createMonths(),
    ‘disableLoadDefaultDecorators’ => true,
    ‘decorators’ => $this->_standardElementDecorator

    )

    );

    and grouping the select elements (month day year) using this display group:

    $this->addDisplayGroup(

    array(‘birthday_month’, ‘birthday_day’, ‘birthday_year’),
    ‘birthdate_data’,
    array(

    ‘description’ => ‘DOB:’,
    ‘disableLoadDefaultDecorators’ => true,
    ‘decorators’ => $this->_standardGroupDecorator

    )

    );

    using these decorator for the select elements:

    protected $_standardElementDecorator = array(

    ‘ViewHelper’

    );

    and this decorator for the group (month day year):

    protected $_standardGroupDecorator = array(

    ‘FormElements’,
    array(‘Description’, array(‘escape’ => false, ‘tag’ => false)),
    array(‘HtmlTag’, array(‘tag’ => ‘dd’)),

    );

    I know it’s a mouthful for a post hehehe. If I change the order in the group decorator:

    protected $_standardGroupDecorator = array(

    array(‘Description’, array(‘escape’ => false, ‘tag’ => false)),
    ‘FormElements’,
    array(‘HtmlTag’, array(‘tag’ => ‘dd’)),

    );

    Alignment gets broken. Please help. I’m very close.

    Cliburn M. Solano
    Pinoy ako

  2. Lovely little tutorial, Beth! This is really a confusing thing to work with, I’ve found. I was having a bit of a tough time figuring out how to wrap both the label and input in a tag.

  3. I just got back from vacation *hence my absence* but I’ve been doing web deving since I was oh, 13? Programming for the past 5 years, mainly php. ZF for about 7-8mo. It’s actually going to save you a TON of headaches by getting you feet wet with OO & MVC. It may seem challenging to pick up on it being green and all, but if you were to become a procedural pro the jump would even be harder.

    The one area that I am new to is blogging 🙂 hah. So what company do you work for up in NYC?

  4. Ah right ha. Yeah you have almost all the same widgets too. I’ve been doing PHP for about a month and zend framework for about 3 weeks! Never done ANY programming before so it’s a bit hard for me, particularly cos we’re doing it MVC style. (Not counting HTML and CSS as programming!). What about you?

  5. Did I? I got a bit of the above from somewhere but I lost where it was, and had changed it a quite bit anyway. I’ll check yours out if you tell me where it is!

  6. Hey Beth, ha. You stole my design!!! 🙂 lol just kidding, ironically enough I am writting about the same stuff. Instead of divs i do ul/lis check it out, i’d love your feedback!

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