A new FORM object for TYPO3 has been long awaited. Finally it is there for you to test. After a testing period the extension will be included in TYPO3 version 4.6 as a system extension. We are looking forward to hear from you.
The project consists of two parts; rewriting and enhancing the Form cObj, which makes it possible to generate the forms, and secondly the Form Wizard, which makes it easy for editors to construct forms.
This project will add a new extension to TYPO3 which will take a lot of functionality from various form extensions, like server side validation, build in captcha functionality, and more validation methods which can be extended.
The Form Wizard for editors will be very intuitive and uses drag & drop and sorting methods to add and replace form elements. While working in the wizard the editor will exactly see how the form will be displayed in the frontend, the website.
Goals
- Rewriting the Form cObj to make it Object Oriented based. This will make it easier for future enhancements (see future goals). Also community extensions can profit from this library as well.
- Output must be right for accessible websites.
- Various validation methods of the submitted values, with choice to do validation server or client side. User defined methods can be added. Possibility to add multiple validation rules to one field or have validation rules which spans more than one element.
- Possibility to group elements in the form with a fieldset. Nested fieldsets will also be possible.
- (X)HTML layout completely based on CSS.
- Intuitive drag and drop system with inline editing for editors in the backend to construct the form. The form will be displayed exactly the way it will be displayed in the frontend.
- Separation of markup and code. This will make it possible to render the forms as XFORMS or PDF Forms using TYPO3 services.
- Cover all possible form elements, attributes and behaviours and add special form fields like date or time fields.
- Configurable confirmation screen after submit.
- Handling of file uploads
- Build in captcha method
- Insert regular TYPO3 content elements in the form.
Future goals
- Add more possibilities for handling the submitted data instead of only emailing, like storing data in the database.
- Multipage forms
- Redirecting mails to different addresses depending on submitted data
- AJAX validation. This makes it possible to show an error immediately after filling a single field without submitting the whole form.
The extension is developed by Patrick Broens and is sponsored by the University of Ilmenau, Netefficiency and CMS works. Please add any issues on the issue tracker of the project on Forge (<link http: forge.typo3.org projects typo3v4-form _blank>forge.typo3.org/projects/typo3v4-form).