[TYPO3-ect] tx_forms

[Steffen Kamper]

Hi Elmar,

"Elmar HInz" <elmar.DOT.hinz at team.MINUS.red.DOT.net> schrieb im Newsbeitrag 
news:mailman.1.1168286024.9907.typo3-team-extension-coordination at lists.netfielders.de...
> Am Mon, 08 Jan 2007 09:26:41 -0600 schrieb Christoph Koehler:
>
>> Hello all,
>>
>> After a long time of silence, it looks like it's getting busier.
>> I have had some help offers from a few people with the idea to take an
>> existing form generating package, html_quickforms being the #1 so far, 
>> and
>> integrating that into TYPO3. There is already an existing quickforms
>> extension, but I haven't got a chance to look at that yet.
>> If you have ideas and want to help, I would like to hear them. So maybe 
>> we
>> can get this thing started again!
>> You can fine me on skype, username thesquire.
>>
>>
>> Christoph
>
>
> Hello Christoph,
>
> yes it's time to look what has been achived and what to do next. The
> complete development of an own forms system came to stop in summer. It
> seems the gap between the first steps and the first motivating
> results is to big to get enough people involved. Also lib/div and the
> party framework have to go this long, lonesome distances.
>
> When the calender project started I first came up with the suggestion to
> take the - I think it was - the phpicalendar, wich took iCal as input and
> provided a readymade output. So there was a defined standard and a
> readymade gpl frontend available. My argument for this trak was that
> this would lead to early results and early results would give motivation
> for the rest of the project. I wonder if they today remember my
> argumentation from the old days, but it seems that it worked pretty well.
> Cal today has really become THE calendar.
>
> So I think is time to change the strategy for the forms project into a
> similar direction and to build on an existing library. I reviewed
> html_quickforms today a little and it looks quite usefull for our purpose.
> Looks at least better then I remember it. I think we should quickly
> integrate it into our setup of software. Maybe we can get it out in common
> with lib/div going officially to beta.
>
> Unfortunatly we can't simply put PEAR packages into TYPO3 extensions. One
> of the big disadvantages of TYPO3, it's proprietary path system.
>
> 1.) PEAR need to be installed into a basedir.
> 2.) PEAR classes don't have XCLASS. The ext manager throws ugly errors.
> 3.) Older TYPO3 installations also complain of invalid classnames.
>
One way could be a (sys)ext that has the pear package and a simple pi1 which 
sets the path vars.
So pear is available and is untouched, updates wouldn't be a problem. I did 
this with geshi, i will try this wit pear also and will inform you.

> One way to solve this, ist to install html_quickforms into the appropriate
> PEAR directory instead of using an extension. This setup doesn't work for
> all installations.
>
> The other way is to put html_quickforms into an extension and to do some
> adaptions, so that it works. Updates of html_quickforms become difficult
> to integrate each time.
>
maybe same way to include ...

> I think the second option is the only one we can choose, else the forms
> library would completly depend on certain server setups. You couldn't use
> it as a real base for extension development then.
>
> Can anybody propose further solutions for this problems?
>
> Another topic:
>
> We could cover the classname HTML_QuickForm i.e. by tx_forms_quick
> using factory patterns that we could include into
> tx_div::makeInstanceClassName. Don't know if there would by much use in
> this.
>
>
> For the roadmap:
>
> Using HTML_QuickForm directly in lib/div can only be one possiblity, also
> it is a usefull one. The next step would be a layer based upon that, which
> would enable auto Form generation based on TS settings and/or TCA 
> settings.
>
>
> Regards
>
> Elmar
>
>

To have a universal form-lib would make much issues much easier, so in my 
opinion it's a great idea to use one improved library. I don't know this 
quickforms, may be there are more simular projects out.

vg  Steffen