[TYPO3-ect] The Big Plan II

[Elmar Hinz]

Hello,

here comes part II of the big plan. This is a first outline. I like to get
a lot of feedback to enhance it to a final proposal.

Regards

Elmar



Use cases
=========

With this I want to outline the range a forms library should be usefull for.

a) Plain old form building: In Extensions the forms library can be used to
program forms with it.

b) Form generation: In Extensions forms can be "autogenerated" by feeding a
configuration (i.e. TCA) to a form generator. This will speed up the
development of extensions.

c) TypoScript forms: Forms can be configured and created directly from
TypoScript.

In the cases b) and c) also the form evaluation and storing can also be
autogenerated. (validator, model generator)


Components
==========

* controller: pi_base or lib/div
* validation: system to do checks
* form elements: simple form fields
* form generator: configuration based form generation (TCA, TypoScript)
* form others(?): AJAX, configurator, ....
* model generator: TCA controlled select, insert, update, delete
* TS supporting extension: form generation and processing from within TS setup

The components form xyz are just proposals. Actual design is done by the
forms project.


Non dependencies
================
Model(query) generator, form generator and MVC library should not be
dependent from each other. This means that it should be possible to combine
the form generator with different types of controllers. It should work with
pi_base as well as with lib/div and also others.

So a flexible interface between form generator and controller is one of the
intersting challenges. The question is, how to tell the form, what type of
action the controller expects.


Dependencies
============
The forms library will consits of 2 or 3 levels that are build upon each
other. The basis is a traditionell set of form elements. Use case a) does
only need this form elements. Second layer could be the automatic form
generation, third layer could be the automatic form procession including
validation with AJAX against the server. Something in that direction. To
designe that is a task of the forms team.

>From generator and maybe the model generator use a common validation library.