how to use hidden form fields to specify values of attributes?

Thursday 13 January 2005 6:13:42 am

I am trying to figure out the same thing - but using a hidden attribute value in a class --
I found this documentation that might do what we need -
http://ez.no/ez_publish/documentation/reference/template_functions/variables/let
I will let you know if I get mine to work. Please post here if you figure yours out.......
Thanks..
By the way, are you working on a class or a form?

Thursday 13 January 2005 10:49:16 am

Believe it or not - I think I have figured this out.........
start with this post that I stumbled across......
http://ez.no/community/forum/developer/overriding_view_templates_for_datatypes
and it will show you how (AND WHERE) to include overrides for datatype views.
In my override I created a hidden input field taking the value of the current users id number.
I am still chugging on how to make it into a conditional so that this hidden field only shows up when a certain class is called...........
Good Luck.......

Friday 14 January 2005 4:39:56 am

Hi again Nigel --
I didn't give you enough explanation before........
Here's what I did --
The hidden field that I needed was an objectrelation datatype - so I entered that into the class using the regular add attribute interface.
Then, I used that forum comment I linked to earlier to do the datatype override for objectrelation datatype. Here's the code that I put in the override file.......

{let user=fetch('user','current_user')}

   <input type="hidden"
                   name="{$attribute_base}_data_object_relation_id_{$attribute.id}"
                   value="{$user.contentobject_id}" />

{/let}

This set my hidden objectrelation attribute to the value of the current user's id number -- and it works like a charm. For the name, I just copied what I found in the standard dataype template into the name field of hidden value. Make sense so far.......

What I still need to figure out is how to do a conditional loop that gets the class id of the current object and only uses this special hidden item code for certain classes.

Also, because of some coding somewhere, I couldn't get my object name to stop appearing in the input layout - so I just deleted the text from the name field of the attribute and put in some dashes so it won't confuse my users.

This workaround keeps me from having to create a custom datatype - which I have no desire to tackle. A hidden value datatype would be nice to have wouldn't it??

Friday 14 January 2005 9:33:00 am

A couple of things (and with disclaimer -- I am NOT a programmer, this is just how I got it to work)....
I actually modified the code in the template for the display of the attribute type, like it said in the linked forum page I listed above.
And, the name code I have in my example is what I copied from the standard template for the objectrealtion datatype.
Did you create the datatype that you needed in the class first?
Just trying to help.......

Wednesday 26 January 2005 3:26:09 am

Final solution:

{let my_name=$content_attributes[0]
     my_entry=$content_attributes[1]
     my_extrafield=$content_attributes[2]
}
<form enctype="multipart/form-data"
      method="post"
      action={concat("/content/edit/",
                     $object.id,
                     "/",
                     $edit_version)|ezurl}>
{* Allow the user to edit name and entry *}
{$my_name.contentclass_attribute.name} {attribute_edit_gui attribute=$my_name}
{$my_entry.contentclass_attribute.name} {attribute_edit_gui attribute=$my_entry}
{* Hide the third attribute and insert some value into it *)
<input type="hidden" 
       name="{$attribute_base}_ezstring_data_text_{$my_extrafield.id}"
       value="the new value for extrafield" 
/>
{* Now do the normal stuff to create the buttons *}
<table class="layout">
    <tr><td>
        <div class="buttonblock">
            <input class="defaultbutton"
                   type="submit"
                   name="PublishButton"
                   value="Submit" />

            <input class="button"
                   type="submit" 
                   name="DiscardButton" 
                   value="Cancel" />

            <input type="hidden" 
                   name="MainNodeID" 
                   value="{$main_node_id}" />
        </div>
    </td></tr>
</table>
</form>
{/let}

My hidden attribute was a Text Line which seems to be also called an ezstring. The trick was to look in design\standard\templates\content\datatype\edit\ezstring.tpl to get the magic incantation:

name="{$attribute_base}_ezstring_data_text_{$content_attributes[2].id}"

The middle bit is different for different data types and you need to look in the relevant file for the exact wording for different data types. Incidentally this compound string is picked up by ezstringtype.php (or the equivalent for other data types) for actual processing.

So that is the way to insert your own programatically determined values into attributes of newly created objects. The solution that has eluded me for quite some time. Thanks to Joanie for her contributions.