(Work in Progress)

Installation

1. Inside your project root, run

   composer require rashidul/raindrops=dev-master

2. Add this to your app.php config file's providers array

   Rashidul\RainDrops\RainDropsServiceProvider::class,

3. Optionally, you can add this to aliases array for simplicity

   'FormBuilder' => Rashidul\RainDrops\Facades\FormBuilder::class,

4. Finally, publish the config files.

   php artisan vendor:publish --provider=Rashidul\RainDrops\RainDropsServiceProvider

Generating Form

To generate a form for a model, you first need to add a $fields public property to your model and populate it with required informations.

Then you can generate the form markup by simply calling the build method on FormBuilder providing an instance of your model

Example:

In your controller:

$client = new Client();

/* or, $client = Client::find(<id>); if you are editing ane existing record */

$form = FormBuilder::build( $client )
                ->form([
                    'action' => 'clients',
                    'method' => 'POST'
                ])
                ->render();

return view('create', compact('form'));

don't forget to use the FormBuilder class at the top of your model

Then in your view, you can do:

{!! $form !!}

That's it!

Form Configuration

There are some helpful methods to further customize the form.

• add( $field_name, $options = [] ) You can add fields to the existing fields which are defined in your model's $fields property.

  $form = FormBuilder::build( $client )
                      ->form([
                          'action' => 'clients',
                          'method' => 'POST'
                      ])
                      ->add('field_name', [
                          'label' => 'Field Label',
                          'type' => 'date'
                      ])
                      ->render();

  first argument is the field's name and second one is an array containing various options for that field.

  label & type fields are mandatory

• modify( $field_name, $options = [] ) You can modify any defined field in the model

  $form = FormBuilder::build( $client )
                      ->form([
                          'action' => 'clients',
                          'method' => 'POST'
                      ])
                      ->modify('field_name', [
                          'label' => 'New changed label',
                          'required' => true
                      ])
                      ->render();

  You need to provide only the options you want to modify/override.

• section( $header, $fields = [] ) Grouping some fields together with a header.

      $form = FormBuilder::build( $client )
                          ->form([
                              'action' => 'clients',
                              'method' => 'POST'
                          ])
                          ->section('Awesome Section One', [ 'field_one', 'field_two'])
                          ->section('Awesome Section Two', [ 'field_three', 'field_four'])
                          ->render();
      
      ```
    

• template( $name ) Name of the template to be used to generate a single field. This is defined in the form config file inside raindrops directory. You can use multiple templates to create two-column/three column layout.

• remove( $field_name ) To remove any field. you can also pass an array of field name to be excluded in the final generated form.

• csrf( boolean ) By default, a csrf field will be generated. you can exclude it by passing false

• only( $fields = [] ) Select only some of the fields to be generated.

• hidden( $name, $value ) Add hidden field to the form.

• submit To configure the submit option.

      $form = FormBuilder::build( $client )
                          ->form([
                              'action' => 'clients',
                              'method' => 'POST'
                              ])
                          ->submit([
                              'text' => 'Save Me',
                              'class' => 'btn btn-success',
                              'icon' => 'fa fa-save'
                          ])
                          ->render();
      

Index Page

For index page, we'll use datatable jQuery plugin. First include the necessary js/css files for the datatable plugin.

Generating table markup/scripts

    $table = DataTable::of(new Client)
            ->setUrl(url('datatables.data'))
            ->setId('data-table')
            ->render();

        return view('index', compact('table'));

In the view file: {!! $table !!}

Handling backend

    public function anyData(Datatables $datatables)
    {
        $query = Client::select();

        return $datatables->eloquent($query)
            ->setTransformer(new DataTableTransformer())
            ->make(true);
    }

CRUD Generator

Our model will have a array property called $fields which will hold all the information we need to generate forms/list pages/filter options etc. later on.

$fields array will contain the model's database fields as key and another configuration array as value.

public $fields = [

	'field_name' => [
		'label' => 'Field Label',
		'type' => 'input type'
		/* other configurations goes here */
	]

]

Options

• label (required)

  label which will be used to create label tag of the form element. also for creating table header in list page.

• type (required)

  Form input type for a specific field. Currently implemented types:

  • basic html input types : text, email, password, file, textarea
  • rich text editor: editor
  • select dropdown: select
  • populating dropdown from another database table(foreign key): select_db
  • datepicker: date
  • timepicker: time

These two fields are required to generate a generic form input element. Below options can be used for further customization of the field.

• form

  Set this to false if you don't want to create a form input field for this particular field.

• index

  Add a index key and set it to true if you want this field to be shown on the list table.

• required

  This will be true if this field is required.The html form input element will have a required attribute for basic client side validations. TODO: later we need to bring in from validations option so that we don't need to specify required seperately.

• validations

  Validation rules for this field.The format is exactly like laravel's default validation rules format with only one minor difference. When using unique rule, add a {id} add the end of the rule to ignore this model's ID while updating e.g. unique:<table_name>,<column_name>{id}

• classes (TODO)

  If you want to use any custom classes for any particular field, you can add a classes option. Pass a comma seperated string of class names.

• attributes (TODO)

  Any extra attributes to generated for the input field.This can be particularly helpful to customize the input with default html attributes, e.g. specifying min & max attribute for a number field. just pass an array with the attributes name/value as key/value pair.

• show

  This option is to determine how the field's data should be displayed. This is used both for the list page table and for the details page of resource.

  currently supported options

  • exact show the value exactly as databae without any modifications.
  • string will pass the value through ucfirst. helpful to be used with name type fields.
  • details_link as a link to the details page of the resource.
  • url just wrap the value inside an anchor tag.
  • tel anchor tag for phone numbers, should be used to make phone numbers clickable on mobile devices.
  • mailto mailto: links, for email address.
  • enum if the field type is select this option will get the actual text from the options array.
  • img to wrap the value around an image tag. to be used with image url fields.
  • doc if the field is a url for any downloadable resource, this will provide option to download it.
  • time
  • datetime
  • relation when the field is actually a foreign key for another table, you can use the relation to show any column from that related model. add an array as the value of the relation option. first element is the name of the relation and the second option is the column name from that related model.

• filter

  What type of input element is to be generated for filtering this field.

  Currently suported

  • enum dropdown with options populated from options element
  • date for any type of date fields. it will generate a field_name-from and field_name-to date picker field.TODO: need a to implement a daterange picker plugin for this.
  • boolean this will generate a checkbox. to be used with any flag type fields.

The following options are required based on the value of type

• options

  This option is required when you set select or select_db as the input type. For select, you need to specify dropdown's value's as an array.

  e.g.

   'type' => 'select',
   'options' => [
   	'option_1' => 'Option One'
   ]

  this will generate an option tag for the select tag:

   <option value="option_1">Option One</option>

  for select_db, options will be a simple array. first element is the name of the db field, which will be used as the option's value.(generally the id column of the table) and second element is the column with option's value. if you pass more than two column names, all those will be concatenated with a space and displayed as option text.

• table

  The name of the table to be used with select_db option.

Example

    /**
     * Fields
     */
    public $fields = [

        'public_id' => [
            'label' => 'Device ID',
            'form' => false,
            'index' => true,
            'show' => 'exact'
        ],

        'serial_number' => [
            'label' => 'Serial Number',
            'type' => 'text',
            'validations' => 'unique:devices,serial_number{id}',
            'index' => true,
            'unique' => true,
            'filter' => 'string'
        ],

        'model_id' => [
            'label' => 'Model',
            'type' => 'select_db',
            'table' => 'device_models',
            'options' => ['id', 'model'],
            'index' => true,
            'show' => ['model', 'model_name']
        ],

        'notes' => [
            'label' => 'Notes',
            'type' => 'editor'
        ],

        'category' => [
            'label' => 'Category',
            'type' => 'select',
            'form' => false,
            'options' => [
                'individual' => 'Individual',
                'company' => 'Company'
            ],
            'classes' => [],
            'required' => true,
            'attributes' =>[],
            'validations' => 'required',
        ],

Model Configuration

There's some additional properties we need to specify in our model.

• $baseUrl

  The route for the model. This will be used to generate create/view/edit/delete url later.

• $entityName

  Name of the model's entity in singular form. Used for generating titles for various pages. e.g. Add New Product, View All Products

• $entityNamePlural

  By default, the $entityName will be passed through laravel's str_plural function to generate plural form of the entity name. If you want to override this and set custom plural form, you can use this property.

• $actions

  When generating rows on a list page, by default, view, edit, delete these action links will be generated.But if you want to add extra action links for custom routes, you can add them in $actions array. e.g. you want to add sale link for all your products in product list page, you can add:

   	protected $actions = [
           'Sale' => '{url}/{id}/sale'
       ];

  {url} will be replaced with the route and {id} will be replaced for that specific resource's id

• $paths

  For the fields which holds path for any type of assets e.g. images, documents etc. you can add their paths in a $paths array. This will be handy when uploading/retrieving assets later.

   	protected $paths = [
           'client_photo' => 'uploads/client/client_photo'
       ];