Using forms with the Zend Framework

Question

I'm relatively new to MVC and the Zend Framework. That being said, I feel like I have a hard time figuring out where Forms belong in my directory structure. I have a modular directory structure, so I don't know if there should be a single forms directory, or one within each module directory.

/application
    /modules/
        /default
            /controllers
            /views
        /admin
            /controllers
            /views

Once you've decided a directory for forms, do you set that directory in the include path of the bootstrap? Or do you include the form in the controller that it's being used in?

How do you use forms with the Zend Framework?

Answer 1

It's a little late but in the current version of ZF this has been solved:

On the following page http://framework.zend.com/manual/en/zend.loader.autoloader-resource.html The manual states:

30.3.2. The Module Resource Autoloader Zend Framework ships with a concrete implementation of Zend_Loader_Autoloader_Resource that contains resource type mappings that cover the default recommended directory structure for Zend Framework MVC applications. This loader, Zend_Application_Module_Autoloader, comes with the following mappings:

api/         => Api
forms/       => Form
models/      => Model
    DbTable/ => Model_DbTable
plugins/     => Plugin

As an example, if you have a module with the prefix of "Blog_", and attempted to instantiate the class "Blog_Form_Entry", it would look in the resource directory's "forms/" subdirectory for a file named "Entry.php". When using module bootstraps with Zend_Application, an instance of Zend_Application_Module_Autoloader will be created by default for each discrete module, allowing you to autoload module resources.

This does, however, require the use of Zend_Application

Answer 2

add this in application/modules/yourmodule/Bootstrap.php file.

class Yourmodule_Bootstrap extends Zend_Application_Module_Bootstrap
{

protected function _initAutoload()
    {
        $autoloader = new Zend_Application_Module_Autoloader(array(
            'namespace' => 'Yourmodule_',
            'basePath'  => APPLICATION_PATH .'/modules/yourmodule',
            'resourceTypes' => array (
                'form' => array(
                    'path' => 'forms',
                    'namespace' => 'Form',
                ),
                'model' => array(
                    'path' => 'models',
                    'namespace' => 'Model',
                ),
            )
        ));
        return $autoloader;
    }

}