Question

When creating form elements with Zend (using Zend Studio for Eclipse), I’d like some auto completion or hints. Here’s what I’m thinking. I’m sure these exist, but I don’t know how to get them.

• I type createElement and auto-completes gives me the signature createElement($type, $name). Great, I select it.

• but when I try to set the $type I don’t get any hints like DateTextBox or ValidationTextBox. Being new, I see how this can be useful. What do you do to remember all the options?

• for the array of attributes like require, invalidMessage, I’d like to get a list of those to choose from, and/or auto-complete when I start typing one.

  // Date field

  $date = $this->createElement('DateTextBox', 'date',

  array('require' => 'true', 'invalidMessage' => 'Invalid date format')

  );

  $date->setLabel('date')->setRequired(true);

Answer 1

You have few options to help yourself, without waiting for any plugin:

• learn it and remember 😉
• extend your phpDoc blocks with all available options:

Example (to be honest I don’t know if Eclipse supports html in phpDoc or even any text after variable name in @param, but it works fine in Netbeans):

/**
 * [...]
 * @param  string $type Can be: <ul><li>DateTextBox</li><li>ValidationTextBox</li></ul>
 * @param  string $name Whatever
 * @param  array|Zend_Config $options Array with following keys: <ul><li>require</li><li>invalidMessage</li></ul>
 * @return Zend_Form_Element
 */
public function createElement($type, $name, $options = null)

• extend Zend class and create your own methods to simplify your work

Example:

class My_Zend_Form_Element extends Zend_Form_Element    
{   
    public function createDateTextBox($name, $options = null)
    {
        return $this->createElement('DateTextBox', $name, $options);
    }
}

• declare some well named constants and provide some hint in phpDoc

Example: (type ZFE_OPTIONS and IDE should show hint with some constants to use as array keys)

/**
 * Can be true or false
 */
define('ZFE_OPTIONS_REQUIRE','require');

• create your own helper classes with methods to produce valid options array

Example:

class ZFE_Options
{
    protected $opts = array();

    /**
     * @param bool $req
     * @return ZFE_Options 
     */
    public function setRequired($req){
        $this->opts['require'] = (bool)$req;
        return $this;
    }

    /**
     * @param string $txt
     * @return ZFE_Options 
     */
    public function setInvalidMessage($txt){
        $this->opts['invalidMessage'] = (string)$txt;
        return $this;
    }

    /**
     * @return array
     */
    public function toArray(){
        return $this->opts;
    }
}

$zfe_options = new ZFE_Options();
$opts = $zfe_options
            ->setRequired(true)
            ->setInvalidMessage('Please provide valid email address')
            ->toArray();