Creating a form view in Zend

Question

Is there a reliable way to create a custom view for a Zend_Form? The decorators are pretty cryptic and using them in fancy ways sometimes is so complicated that I'd prefer to just write the HTML by hand. Is there a way to do it and still make the form fully cooperate with the controller (eg. call $form->isValid() and expect everything to validate properly)? If so, are there any caveats to look out for (like taking care about validation errors display)?

The ideal solution would be to create a form and pass the elements array (containing the necessary data like names, IDs, input types and all needed to render the HTML) - does Zend Framework permit this?

[EDIT]

Instead of just echoing the form object, I have tried adding this code in the view (a simple login form):

<?php
$userid = $this->form->getElement('userid');
$pass = $this->form->getElement('password');
$remember = $this->form->getElement('remember');
$submit = $this->form->getElement('submit');
?>
<form enctype="<?php echo $this->form->getEnctype(); ?>" method="<?php echo $this->form->getMethod(); ?>" action="<?php echo $this->form->getAction(); ?>" id="<?php echo $this->form->getId(); ?>">
name: <input type="text" id="<?php echo $userid->getId(); ?>" name="<?php echo $userid->getName(); ?>" /><br />
pass: <input type="password" id="<?php echo $pass->getId(); ?>" name="<?php echo $pass->getName(); ?>" /><br />
remember: <input type="checkbox" id="<?php echo $remember->getId(); ?>" name="<?php echo $remember->getName(); ?>" /><br />
submit: <input type="submit" id="<?php echo $submit->getId(); ?>" name="<?php echo $submit->getName(); ?>" value="<?php echo $submit->getValue(); ?>" />
</form>

The form seems to work OK and validate (although I don't get redirected the the page I came from - but that's a different problem, I believe, as I pass that via GET, not in the form). Is that acceptable, or am I doing something horridly wrong without knowing it?

Answer 1

A lot depends of the design and the final layout.

Where do you want to display validation errors? How? Via Error decorator?
Do you want also use descriptions?
Do you need to use other decorators?

The best way seems to be to create just your own Zend_Form_Element_ThreadIcons element. This is as easy as subclassing one of Zend_Form elements and implementing custom _render() method returning HTML you need. You may even use your own View instance there.

Then you may pass array of icons as an element option and handle it the way you need.

If you decide using decorators, you my find this presentation very useful to master the technique:

• http://www.slideshare.net/weierophinney/leveraging-zendform-decorators