[Catalyst] An initial version of a form rendering and validationmodule

[Peter Edwards]

2005/11/22, Andrew Ford <A.Ford at ford-mason.co.uk>:
>> Given that the module works with Catalyst I am making a first
>> announcement of version 0.04 here.  The source code is available from:
>>
>>     http://andrew-ford.com/perl/cgi-formmanager/

Looks good, just the sort of thing I need.
I've got Catalyst set up and need to make a business application. The
ServerDB example is a good start. Now I'm trying to figure out the best way
to build on that.

Bernard FRIT wrote:
>Do you think that form definition data could be reasonably loaded from
>say a YAML file or whatever in the flavor of formbuilder source
>directive?

I had been thinking along these lines:
Use an XML / YAML screen definition file that is rendered at run time into a
TT2 template, looking up field labels, constraints and any special
Javascript handling from a data dictionary. I guess I might need to cache
the compiled templates and re-generate them if the code detects the
definition has changed.
One level above this, for each screen hold multiple definitions, say against
user, team or company, to tailor the appearance of the application. This
would let users pick dynamically the fields they want to see on screen.
(Yes, I'm being bitten because of hard coded screens.)
Based on the virtual host name vary how the app looks and works, use
alternate dictionaries and make Internationalization easier.
I'm not trying to re-invent ColdFusion here but save on Apache instances,
though there might be scope for a screen definition editor later on to save
time typing {}s for many screens.

All this is a tier or two above Catalyst in package terms.
I'm not sure where the best place is to discuss this sort of thing?
It seems a fairly common set of requirements when writing a business system
and I don't want to reinvent any wheels.

Thanks, Peter