Forum OpenACS Q&A: edit-display mode with ad_form

Does anybody know how to use edit-display mode with ad_form? I would like to create a custom form that switches between the two modes with a button click.

It works fine when using auto-generated forms (see: display-edit demo). Even the buttons change.

But, that's the only example I found. What to do when I don't use autogenerated forms. How to change form:mode?  I'm using ad_form, so I suspect I should define a proc in -onSubmit? Does anybody have an example?

Aldert,

I'm not sure what you're trying to do.

The basic functionality is this:

- The form can be in either 'display' or 'edit' mode.

- You can set the -actions switch to your ad_form (see documentation for template::form::create) to defined the list of buttons available when in display mode.

- On both the request and submission connection, you can use template::form::get_action to find out which button was clicked while in edit mode.

Hope this helps.

/Lars

Few remarks:
- The main reason it failed was because all fields seem to be obligatory. Submit and the change between display/edit failed silently in my test formtemplate. Making them optional is easy but It took me a long time to understand.
- Furthermore the name of the submit button needs to start with "formbutton:" if you want to use: 'get_action' or 'get_button' (at least in my case).
- As far as I can see '-display_button' is not supported by ad_form. Is this because one should use '-actions' ?