I have a scenario in which I have two models, profile and education, with a Profile hasMany Education relationship.
Then I have a view where I want to have multiple forms:
- One edit form for each Education entry of the user's profile.
- One form to add a new entry.
The problem here is that I want the edit forms to be filled with the data of each entry. Any ideas on how I can implement this?
CakePHP documentation states that:
The FormHelper uses the $this->request->data property to automatically detect whether to create an add or edit form. If $this->request->data contains an array element named after the form’s model, and that array contains a non-empty value of the model’s primary key, then the FormHelper will create an edit form for that record
I already implemented successfully an edit form but in a case where I only had one form.
Right now I have something like this:
EducationController.php
public class EducationController extends AppController{
/* (...) */
public function edit_index(){
$user_id = $this->Auth->user('id');
$profile = $this->Profile->find('first', array('conditions' => array('Profile.user_id' => $user_id)));
$this->set('profile', $profile);
$this->request->data = $profile;
}
/* (...) */
}
As for the view file...
<?php
foreach ($profile['Education'] as $key => $value) {
?>
<div class="history-sub-menu" id="history-1">
<p> <?php echo $value['education'] . ' - ' . $value['school'] ?> </p>
<?php echo $this->Html->image("arrow_bot.png") ?>
</div>
<?php
/*
* Prints the form for editing... the id of the education entry being edited goes
* as a parameter
*/
echo $this->element('education_edit_form', array('hidden' => true, 'id' => $value['id']));
?>
<?php
}
?>
<div class="add-sub-menu">
<p><?php echo $add_another_position ?></p>
<?php echo $this->Html->image("plus_blue.png") ?>
</div>
<?php
/*
* Prints the form for adding... as no parameter is given as the id
* the form assumes it is a form for adding.
*/
echo $this->element('education_edit_form', array('hidden' => true));
?>
The 'education_edit_form' element:
<?php
/* Prints a form for creating or editing an user academic entry.
*
* In case of edit form a variable id must be set with the identifier of
* the academic entry being creted.
*
* Other Paramaters:
* hiddden - Set to true if the form should be hidden by default
*
*/
if (isset($hidden)) {
($hidden) ? $hidden = 'display:none' : $hidden = '';
} else {
$hidden = '';
}
if (isset($id)){
$id_string = ".$id.";
}else{
$id_string = ".";
}
/* String Constants */
$input_eduschool_default_text = __("School");
$input_edudegree_default_text = __("Degree");
$input_edufield_default_text = __("Field/s of Education");
$input_edugrade_default_text = __("Grade (What qualification/s did you obtain?");
$input_edudescription_default_text = __("Description");
$input_edustartdate_default_text = __("Start Date");
$input_eduenddate_default_text = __("End Date");
$submit_button_text = __("Save");
?>
<?php echo $this->Form->create('Education', array('controller' => 'Education', 'action' => 'add', 'class' => 'main', 'style' => '$hidden')); ?>
<?php
echo $this->Form->input('Education'.$id_string.'school', array(
'class' => 'white large',
'placeholder' => $input_eduschool_default_text,
'id' => 'edu-school',
'label' => false,
'div' => false,
'type' => 'text'
));
?>
<?php
echo $this->Form->input('Education'.$id_string.'education', array(
'class' => 'white large',
'placeholder' => $input_edudegree_default_text,
'id' => 'edu-education',
'label' => false,
'div' => false,
'type' => 'text'
));
echo $this->Form->input('Education'.$id_string.'study_field', array(
'class' => 'white large',
'placeholder' => $input_edufield_default_text,
'id' => 'edu-field',
'label' => false,
'div' => false,
'type' => 'text'
));
echo $this->Form->input('Education'.$id_string.'qualification', array(
'class' => 'white large',
'placeholder' => $input_edugrade_default_text,
'id' => 'edu-grade',
'label' => false,
'div' => false,
'type' => 'text'
));
echo $this->Form->input('Education'.$id_string.'start_date', array(
'class' => 'white one-third',
'placeholder' => $input_edustartdate_default_text,
'id' => 'edu-start-date',
'label' => false,
'div' => false,
'type' => 'text'
));
echo $this->Form->input('Education'.$id_string.'end_date', array(
'class' => 'white one-third',
'placeholder' => $input_eduenddate_default_text,
'id' => 'edu-end-date',
'label' => false,
'div' => false,
'type' => 'text'
));
echo $this->Form->input('Education'.$id_string.'description', array(
'class' => 'white large',
'placeholder' => $input_edudescription_default_text,
'id' => 'edu-notes',
'label' => false,
'div' => false,
'type' => 'textarea',
'rows' => '5'
));
?>
<?php
echo $this->Form->submit($submit_button_text, array(
'class' => 'intro_submit',
'type' => 'submit'
));
echo $this->Form->end();
?>
Note please that this is a draft... I still have to implement the actions to process the form data and do some additional validations in the 'education_edit_form' element. But right now I only want to know how to fill the edit forms with the values from the entry being edited.
Thank you in advance
