Question

Project: To create dynamic multi page form that populates the fields in different ways depending on various situations.

Context: Using CMSMS and Smarty tags to insert PHP into the requried pages. Each single page of the form is being built using a single smarty

Current Method: Using smarty tags, I am writing large chunks of HTML echoed in heredoc notation. When I reach a part of the form that needs to be dynamically genearted (such as a drop down menu) I escape the heredoc, write the PHP (using standard echo functions to generate the HTML required for that form element) then return to heredoc for more chunks of HTML.

Suspicion: this is inelegant, messy, tedious and just feels wrong.

Request: Any idea of a better way of doing this?

EDIT: An example of a chunk of my current setup, here you can see an initial chunk of static HTML is echoed – (the start of the form, and the first question) then a drop down menu which requires dynamic generation depending on the data that exists in the SESSION variables. After this, the heredoc resumes and echos more static HTML:

echo <<<EOD
<form id="myform" method="post" action="?page=2">
<div class="myform">

<div class="formfield">
    <div class="question"><label for="sv_01">Question?</label> <input type="text" name="sv_01" value="$sv_01" size="10" maxlength="10" /></div>
        <div class="subquestion"><label for="sv_02">What Year?</label>
EOD;
                echo '<select  name="sv_02">';   
                $vars = array(
                '-Year' => 'Year',
                '-2012' => '2012', 
                '-2011' => '2011', 
                '-2010' => '2010', 
                '-2009' => '2009', 
                '-2008' => '2008', 
                '-2007' => '2007', 
                '-2006' => '2006', 
                '-2005' => '2005', 
                'Pre 2005' => 'Pre 2005', 
                );

                foreach($vars as $val => $name){
                    if($_SESSION['sv_02'] == $val){
                        echo '<option value="' . substr($val, 0, 1) . '" selected>' . $name . '</option>';
                    } else {
                        echo '<option value="' . substr($val, 0, 1) . '">' . $name . '</option>';
                    }
                }

                echo '</select></div>';
echo <<<EOD

    <div class="question"><br /> <label for="sv_04">Another question</label> <input type="text" name="sv_04" value="$sv_04" size="10" maxlength="10" />%</div>
        <div class="subquestion"><label for="sv_07">When was the data collected?</label> 
EOD;
                echo '<select  name="sv_07">';   
                $vars = array(
                '-Month' => 'Month',
                '-January' => 'January', 
                '-February' => 'February', 
                '-March' => 'March', 
                '-April' => 'April', 
                '-May' => 'May', 
                '-June' => 'June', 
                '-July' => 'July', 
                '-August' => 'August', 
                '-September' => 'September', 
                '-October' => 'October', 
                '-November' => 'November', 
                '-December' => 'December', 
                );

                foreach($vars as $val => $name){
                    if($_SESSION['sv_07'] == $val){
                        echo '<option value="' . substr($val, 0, 1) . '" selected>' . $name . '</option>';
                    } else {
                        echo '<option value="' . substr($val, 0, 1) . '">' . $name . '</option>';
                    }
                }

                echo '</select><select  name="sv_08">';

                $vars = array(
                '-Year' => 'Year',
                '-2012' => '2012', 
                '-2011' => '2011', 
                '-2010' => '2010', 
                '-2009' => '2009', 
                '-2008' => '2008', 
                '-2007' => '2007', 
                '-2006' => '2006', 
                '-2005' => '2005', 
                'Pre 2005' => 'Pre 2005', 
                );

                foreach($vars as $val => $name){
                    if($_SESSION['sv_08'] == $val){
                        echo '<option value="' . substr($val, 0, 1) . '" selected>' . $name . '</option>';
                    } else {
                        echo '<option value="' . substr($val, 0, 1) . '">' . $name . '</option>';
                    }
                }

                echo '</select></div>'; 

echo<<<EOD          


<div class="continue"><input type="submit" value="Continue" /></div>
</div>

</div>
</form>
EOD;

Answer 1

As opposed to standard HTML+PHP? This works fine with templating tools too.

public function render() {
?>
<html>
    <head>
        <title><?= $this->title ?></title>
    </head>
    <body>
        <h1>This is my awesome page</h1>

        <p>Choose from a menu.</p>
        <?php $this->renderMenu() ?>

        <p>Or enter your details:</p>
        <?php $this->renderForm() ?>
    </body>
</html>
<?php
}

If this isn’t what you’re getting at, show some code.