Forum OpenACS Development: ad_form documentation

I put some docs on using ad_form at:
http://jongriffin.com/static/openacs/ad_form/using-ad- form

Please comment as this is just the beginning. I am sure some things are incomplete and maybe done wrong.

There's some info on ad_form_new_p in this thread:

https://openacs.org/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=0006YU

Note that within the -form declaration it's not necessary to continue lines with a backslash at the end. The list declarations can span several lines without a problem - emacs in tcl-mode indents them automatically quite nicely, like this:

    {start_date:date,to_sql(sql_date),from_sql(linear_date) 
        {label "Start"} 
        {format "YYYY/MM/DD HH12:MI AM"} 
        {minutes_interval {0 45 15}} 
        {today} 
        {help}}

And for the risk of being called a nitpicker again: I'd find it nice if the code was properly indented in the example - currently some of the widget declarations align to the left border but should be indented.

Having inline comments in the example would make it more readable too:

} -edit_data {
    # valid request to update an existing record
    db_exec_plsql note_update { }
    ad_returnredirect "."
    ad_script_abort
}

Ola, Simon, ad_form's cool but remember ... it's just Tcl :)  I can't banish the standard Tcl rules for parsing input just by writing a proc!

ad_form_new_p is a new proc written by Tilmann that works when there's a error in form validation, which confuses the simpler "info exists" test.  So, yes, the doc is out of date on this point.

For a complete list of datatypes, go to acs-templating/tcl and do

grep ::validate *.tcl

For a complete list of widgets, to go acs-templating/tcl and do

grep ::widget widget-procs.tcl

(ad_form knows nothing about widgets and datatypes beyond what the form templating system implements)

*Damn* I'm disappointed Tcl cannot read my mind and just do what I want it to, and not what I tell it.

What can I say - the (to me) completely new and totally cool lay-up of the different blocks of ad_form in the api-doc example must have overwhelmed me, making me totally dased and confused. Yeah, that must have been it! 😊

And it all works now! Isn't that strange?

Anyway, I think I personally prefer the following style:

} -select_query_name {
    category_select
} -new_data {