Chaos tool suite's
Form wizard tool
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
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?
Other Examples
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
What it is not
What the Form wizard tool is not
A point-and-click GUI interface to set up a multistep forms wizard
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
Drupal's FAPI
Page callback
Form
Save
Render
drupal_goto()
You must unlearn
what 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
Paradigm Shift
Page callback
Wizard
Render
Save
drupal_goto()
Form
Form
Form
Form
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
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
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)
Ctools' Form wizard tool
$output = ctools_wizard_multistep_form(
$form_info,
$step,
$form_state
);
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’]
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.
Demo and Code
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;
Resources 1
http://oadaeh.net/presenting_at_drupalcamps
http://www.thecarneyeffect.co.uk/ctools-modalwizard-multistep-form-using-ajax-drupal-7
http://internetdevels.com/blog/ctools-multistepwizard-example
http://www.grasmash.com/article/buildingmultistep-registration-form-drupal-7-usingctools
http://www.convertcontrol.de/en/help/ctools/wizard
Resources 2
Documentation:
Advanced help
sites/all/modules/ctools/includes/wizard.inc
Presentation:
http://www.angrydonuts.com/ctools-presentationslides-and-example-code
Extending the tool:
http://drupal7ish.blogspot.com/2011/02/extendingchaos-tools-wizard.html
Questions?