So the real trick is making it extensible so you can use it to lay out a "basic
default" form, but override certain things to customize it.
The design I had worked out didn't assume you only had one field per row. It let you
put as many fields as you liked in a row. It would add up the number of fields on each
row, multiply them all for a "common" denominator, and use that as the number of
columns in a table. Each table cell would use rowspan to use up the appropriate space.
Everything would come out neat and lined up...
I hadn't gotten to field validation yet when I put it aside...
At 02:28 PM 1/3/01 -0500, Aaron Johnson wrote:
>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>Hash: SHA1
>
>Hey Paul,
>
>In theory and in some practices, I think this might work, however
>they are a number of things that have stood in my way when trying to
>do the same thing:
>
>1) Form layout almost always begs to be different for each site you
>do. I personally enjoy a well laid out form. To do layout
>programatically would definitely preclude you from making your forms
>look nice and well organized (ie: every form would almost have to be
>row after row after row of form elements, you would never be able to
>have multiple form elements on the same row because they'll all be
>different sizes)
>
>2) Form handling is almost always different. Good forms validate the
>data sent to them, checking to make sure a date is a date, an email
>is an email, a phone number is a phone number and so on... you can
>write custom tags that assist in this, but again, you're going to run
>into specialized cases where you'll have write custom code (ie:
>custom wants to validate an their proprietary order number is an
>order number...)
>
>Obviously it's up to you to do, and like I said first, in theory,
>it's possible. If what you want to create is a simple form creation
>custom tag that doesn't do much validation and is laid out in a
>similar fashion each time, then by all means go for it... but I can
>speak from experience in saying that even big CF shops still write
>forms by hand, without a custom tag.
>
>Aaron Johnson, MCSE, MCP+I
>Allaire Certified ColdFusion Developer
>MINDSEYE, Inc.
><phn>617.350.0339
><fax>617.350.8884
><icq>66172567
>[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
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