Complex HTML forms

[George Sakkis]

I'd like to gather advice and links to any existing solutions (e.g.
libraries, frameworks, design patterns) on general ways of writing
complex web forms, as opposed to the typical {name:value} flat model.
A particular case of what I mean by complex is hierarchical forms. For
instance, a form that consists of a select list widget, where each
item of the list activates a distinct set of other widgets. Think for
example of a web frontend to CSV or SVN options and commands, where
each command has its own suboptions. The suboptions are hidden (or
even inexistent) until the user selects the specific command, and only
then they appear (typically by Javascript). When the form is
submitted, the selected options are passed in the server in some form
that preserves the hierarchy, i.e. not as a flat dict. Is there
anything close to such a beast around ?

George

[Paul Boddie]

George Sakkis wrote:

When the form is submitted, the selected options are passed in the server in some form
that preserves the hierarchy, i.e. not as a flat dict. Is there anything close to such a beast around ?

Yes, I have a framework called XSLForms which generates hierarchical
field names when rendering XML documents using XSL-based templates;
these field names are then interpreted in order to build XML documents
based on the encoded hierarchy information. When these activities are
successfully combined, the outcome is some kind of serialisation of
XML data in Web forms.

Take a look at the XSLTools distribution (which contains XSLForms):

http://www.python.org/pypi/XSLTools

Using the framework is not as easy as I'd like it to be, but there are
a few examples (as well as the code, of course) and that should give
you some ideas.

Paul

[Gregor Horvath]

George Sakkis schrieb:

I'd like to gather advice and links to any existing solutions (e.g.
libraries, frameworks, design patterns) on general ways of writing
complex web forms, as opposed to the typical {name:value} flat model.
A particular case of what I mean by complex is hierarchical forms. For

http://toscawidgets.org/
http://docs.turbogears.org/1.0/SimpleWidgetForm

--
Greg

[Diez B. Roggisch]

George Sakkis schrieb:

I'd like to gather advice and links to any existing solutions (e.g.
libraries, frameworks, design patterns) on general ways of writing
complex web forms, as opposed to the typical {name:value} flat model.
A particular case of what I mean by complex is hierarchical forms. For
instance, a form that consists of a select list widget, where each
item of the list activates a distinct set of other widgets. Think for
example of a web frontend to CSV or SVN options and commands, where
each command has its own suboptions. The suboptions are hidden (or
even inexistent) until the user selects the specific command, and only
then they appear (typically by Javascript). When the form is
submitted, the selected options are passed in the server in some form
that preserves the hierarchy, i.e. not as a flat dict. Is there
anything close to such a beast around ?

formencode, which is heavily used in TurboGears. The dynamic parts
though you have to code yourself - but using mochikit, this is easy as
cake...

Diez

[George Sakkis]

On Feb 18, 4:44 am, Gregor Horvath <[e-mail]:

George Sakkis schrieb:

I'd like to gather advice and links to any existing solutions (e.g.
libraries, frameworks, design patterns) on general ways of writing
complex web forms, as opposed to the typical {name:value} flat model.
A particular case of what I mean by complex is hierarchical forms. For

http://toscawidgets.org/http://docs....mpleWidgetForm

--
Greg

Thank you all for the helpful replies. ToscaWidgets seems particularly
promising at a first glance, I'll look into it first.

Best,
George