Chaos tool suite's Form wizard tool

1. Chaos tool suite's Form wizard tool

2. Who am I? • oadaeh • d.o UID: 4649 (10 years 1 month) Mass Contact, Basic webmail • Live in: Las Vegas, NV • Organizer of the Drupal User Group of Las Vegas: http://dug.lv/ • Ask away – don't wait until the end

3. Audience survey Who has ever attempted to use the Form wizard tool? Who has ever attempted multi-step forms in Drupal using another method? What are the other methods you have used?

4. Other Examples

5. What it is What is the Form wizard tool? • It is a way to make multi-step forms less difficult What are multi-step forms? • A series of forms culminating in a single or group of actions

6. What it is not What the Form wizard tool is not • A point-and-click GUI interface to set up a multi-step forms wizard

7. How Drupal does it • Drupal's FAPI wants to own the process • Form callback builds entire form • Submit callback saves entire form • Standard multistep means having entire form, only showing part of it, doing weird things in submit

8. Drupal's FAPI Page callback Form Save Render drupal_goto()

9. You must unlearnwhat you have learned • You cannot be successful with multi-step forms, unless you divorce the form presentation from the data • Your form doesn't load, save, or own your data • Your form is a view in the MVC sense; it is a view of the data only

10. Paradigm Shift Page callback Wizard Form Render Form Form Form Save drupal_goto()

11. Broad overview(the parts of the wizard) • Entry point into main function (hook_menu()) • The main function, which defines and initiates the wizard • The data, which is an object • Object caching • Form functions • Callbacks – the wizard interacting functions

12. Start at the beginning Install and enable: • Chaos tools suite • Only the main Ctools module needs to be enabled • Advanced Help • Only if you want the documentation • Your module • Contains you form wizard code

13. Ctools' Object Cache A non-volatile, temporary cache stored in the database ctools_object_cache_set($obj, $name, $cache) $cache = ctools_object_cache_get($obj, $name, $skip_cache = FALSE) ctools_object_cache_clear($obj, $name)

14. Ctools' Form wizard tool $output = ctools_wizard_multistep_form( $form_info, $step, $form_state );

15. The Forms • Standard FAPI forms • The data they operate on comes from $form_state • Can have validate functions • Must have submit functions • To save the data from $form_state[‘values’] to $form_state[‘whateveryoucallyourcacheobject’]

16. The Callbacks • Next: This function should take the submitted data and cache it for later use by the finish callback. • Finish: This function should finalize all data. • Cancel: This function should clean up any data that is cached. • Return: This is often the same as the finish callback. • Common: Defaults to: $form_info['id'] . _<callback> if it doesn't exist. Params: &$form_state.

17. Demo and Code

18. Other Considerations • AJAX • The cancel and back buttons with required fields • Anonymous users • Auto caching ($form_info['auto cache']) • Next and finish callbacks not required • Unless you want to change what the next form will be in the next callback, which is set thusly: $form_state[‘triggering element’][‘#next’] = $new_step;

19. Resources 1 • http://oadaeh.net/presenting_at_drupalcamps • http://www.thecarneyeffect.co.uk/ctools-modal-wizard-multistep-form-using-ajax-drupal-7 • http://internetdevels.com/blog/ctools-multistep-wizard-example • http://www.grasmash.com/article/building-multistep-registration-form-drupal-7-using-ctools • http://www.convert-control.de/en/help/ctools/wizard

20. Resources 2 • Documentation: • Advanced help • sites/all/modules/ctools/includes/wizard.inc • Presentation: • http://www.angrydonuts.com/ctools-presentation-slides-and-example-code • Extending the tool: • http://drupal7ish.blogspot.com/2011/02/extending-chaos-tools-wizard.html

21. Questions?