Rails - Aug 2007 - form_for FormBuilder

I''m making heavy use of a custom FormBuilder.  Im using the common
wrapper method name "tagged_form_for" to wrap #form_for.  However,
this limits me to _surrounding_ the <form/> with my tags (in this case
im using a table).

So my resulting output is along the lines of:

<table>
  <form>
   <tr><td>...stuff...</td></tr>
  </form>
</table>

This isnt playing very well with firefox and innerHTML (hard to
explain, but it makes the form invisible).  The solution is to render
it more appropriately like so:

<form>
  <table>
    <tr><td>...stuff...</td></tr>
  </table>
</form>

The problem I have with that is it appears to do that I have to
override the entire #form_for method.  That will work _for now_ but Id
like to know if anyone has a more elegant solution to inject my
elements _after_ the <form> and before the </form> pieces.  Without
requiring a hack such as <%= f.start_table %> <%= f.end_table %>
would
be preferable.

If I come up with anything in the meantime I will post it back here as
well.

Joe


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On Aug 3, 2007, at 17:41 , Joe Noon wrote:
>
> I''m making heavy use of a custom FormBuilder.  Im using the common
> wrapper method name "tagged_form_for" to wrap #form_for. 
However,
> this limits me to _surrounding_ the <form/> with my tags (in this
case
> im using a table).
>
> So my resulting output is along the lines of:
>
> <table>
>   <form>
>    <tr><td>...stuff...</td></tr>
>   </form>
> </table>
>
> This isnt playing very well with firefox and innerHTML
I think a key problem with this is that it''s not valid (X)HTML.
> The problem I have with that is it appears to do that I have to
> override the entire #form_for method.  That will work _for now_ but Id
> like to know if anyone has a more elegant solution to inject my
> elements _after_ the <form> and before the </form> pieces. 
Without
> requiring a hack such as <%= f.start_table %> <%= f.end_table
%> would
> be preferable.
I came across this technique on the web someplace, but I can''t  
remember where. (I know I was reading the "When V is for Vexing" pdf 
[0] by Bruce Williams and Marcel Molina,Jr., which encourages custom  
view helpers in general and I googled quite a bit as well.)
While this doesn''t solve the issue in the way you''ve
described,
perhaps it''ll point you towards a satisfactory solution. This creates  
a form helper that automatically adds a label element for each input  
element.

# helpers/labeled_builder.rb
class LabeledBuilder < ActionView::Helpers::FormBuilder
   def self.create_labeled_field(method_name)
     define_method(%(labeled_#{method_name})) do |label, *args|
     @template.content_tag("label",
                           label.to_s.humanize,
                           :for => %(#{@object_name}_#{label})) +
       self.send(method_name.to_sym, label, *args)
     end
   end

   field_helpers.each do |name|
     create_labeled_field(name)
   end
end

# helpers/builder_helper.rb
module BuilderHelper
   def labeled_form_for(name, *args, &block)
     options = args.last.is_a?(Hash) ? args.pop : { }
     options = options.merge(:builder => LabeledBuilder)
     args = (args << options)
     form_for(name, *args, &block)
   end
end

I''ve included BuilderHelper in ApplicationHelper.

I call it like:

<% labeled_form_for :object  do |f| %>
<%= f.labeled_text_field :attr_1 %>
<%= f.labeled_text_area :attr_2 %>
<% end %>

I think you could extend this so it would automatically include the  
table start and end tags. I''m not sure how though :)

Hope this helps.

Michael Glaesemann
grzm seespotcode net

[0](http://www.codefluency.com/assets/2007/5/18/VisForVexing.pdf)

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