CGI::FormBuilder::Template(3)              User Contributed Perl Documentation


NAME
       CGI::FormBuilder::Template - Template adapters for FormBuilder

SYNOPSIS
           # Define a template engine

           package CGI::FormBuilder::Template::Whatever;
           use base 'Whatever::Template::Module';

           sub new {
               my $self  = shift;
               my $class = ref($self) || $self;
               my %opt   = @_;

               # override some options
               $opt{some_setting} = 0;
               $opt{another_var}  = 'Some Value';

               # instantiate the template engine
               $opt{engine} = Whatever::Template::Module->new(%opt);

               return bless \%opt, $class;
           }

           sub render {
               my $self = shift;
               my $form = shift;   # only arg is form object

               # grab any manually-set template params
               my %tmplvar = $form->tmpl_param;

               # example template manipulation
               my $html = $self->{engine}->do_template(%tmplvar);

               return $html;       # scalar HTML is returned
           }

DESCRIPTION
       This documentation describes the usage of FormBuilder templates, as
       well as how to write your own template adapter.

       The template engines serve as adapters between CPAN template modules
       and FormBuilder. A template engine is invoked by using the "template"
       option to the top-level new() method:

           my $form = CGI::FormBuilder->new(
                           template => 'filename.tmpl'
                      );

       This example points to a filename that contains an "HTML::Template"
       compatible template to use to layout the HTML. You can also specify the
       "template" option as a reference to a hash, allowing you to further
       customize the template processing options, or use other template
       engines.

       For example, you could turn on caching in "HTML::Template" with
       something like the following:

           my $form = CGI::FormBuilder->new(
                           fields => \@fields,
                           template => {
                               filename => 'form.tmpl',
                               shared_cache => 1
                           }
                      );

       As mentioned, specifying a hashref allows you to use an alternate
       template processing system like the "Template Toolkit".  A minimal
       configuration would look like this:

           my $form = CGI::FormBuilder->new(
                           fields => \@fields,
                           template => {
                               type => 'TT2',      # use Template Toolkit
                               template => 'form.tmpl',
                           },
                      );

       The "type" option specifies the name of the engine. Currently accepted
       types are:

           Builtin -  Included, default rendering if no template specified
           Div     -  Render form using <div> (no tables)
           HTML    -  HTML::Template
           Text    -  Text::Template
           TT2     -  Template Toolkit
           Fast    -  CGI::FastTemplate
           CGI_SSI -  CGI::SSI

       In addition to one of these types, you can also specify a complete
       package name, in which case that module will be autoloaded and its
       new() and render() routines used. For example:

           my $form = CGI::FormBuilder->new(
                           fields => \@fields,
                           template => {
                               type => 'My::Template::Module',
                               template => 'form.tmpl',
                           },
                      );

       All other options besides "type" are passed to the constructor for that
       templating system verbatim, so you'll need to consult those docs to see
       what all the different options do. Skip down to "SEE ALSO".

SUBCLASSING TEMPLATE ADAPTERS
       In addition to the above included template engines, it is also possible
       to write your own rendering module. If you come up with something cool,
       please let the mailing list know!

       To do so, you need to write a module which has a sub called render().
       This sub will be called by FormBuilder when "$form->render" is called.
       This sub can do basically whatever it wants, the only thing it has to
       do is return a scalar string which is the HTML to print out.

       This is actually not hard. Here's a simple adapter which would
       manipulate an "HTML::Template" style template:

           # This file is My/HTML/Template.pm
           package My::HTML::Template;

           use CGI::FormBuilder::Template::HTML;
           use base 'CGI::FormBuilder::Template::HTML';

           sub render {
               my $self = shift;    # class object
               my $form = shift;    # $form as only argument

               # the template object (engine) lives here
               my $tmpl = $self->engine;

               # setup vars for our fields (objects)
               for ($form->field) {
                   $tmpl->param($_ => $_->value);
               }

               # render output
               my $html = $tmpl->output;

               # return scalar;
               return $html;
           }
           1;  # close module

       Then in FormBuilder:

           use CGI::FormBuilder;
           use My::HTML::Template;   # your module

           my $tmpl = My::HTML::Template->new;

           my $form = CGI::FormBuilder->new(
                           fields   => [qw(name email)],
                           header   => 1,
                           template => $tmpl   # pass template object
                      );

           # set our company from an extra CGI param
           my $co = $form->cgi_param('company');
           $tmpl->engine->param(company => $co);

           # and render like normal
           print $form->render;

       That's it! For more details, the best thing to do is look through the
       guts of one of the existing template engines and go from there.

SEE ALSO
       CGI::FormBuilder, CGI::FormBuilder::Template::HTML,
       CGI::FormBuilder::Template::Text, CGI::FormBuilder::Template::TT2,
       CGI::FormBuilder::Template::Fast, CGI::FormBuilder::Template::CGI_SSI

REVISION
       $Id: Template.pm 97 2007-02-06 17:10:39Z nwiger $

AUTHOR
       Copyright (c) Nate Wiger <http://nateware.com>. All Rights Reserved.

       This module is free software; you may copy this under the terms of the
       GNU General Public License, or the Artistic License, copies of which
       should have accompanied your Perl kit.

perl v5.40.0                      2024-12-15     CGI::FormBuilder::Template(3)