Adding Settings to Form Field Types

Once you develop a Form Field Type, you might need to add settings to it. For example, your time field might need to be configured to accept different time formats. Here you’ll learn how to add settings to form field types by adding a mask and a placeholder to the Time field type created in the previous tutorial.

To add settings to form field types, you’ll use these steps:

  • Write an interface that extends the default field type configuration, DefaultDDMFormFieldTypesettings.
  • Update the *FormFieldRenderer so it makes the new configuration options available to the JavaScript component and/or the Soy template for rendering.
  • Update the JavaScript component (defined in time_field.js in our example) to configure the new settings and their default values.
  • Update the Soy template to include any settings that need to be rendered in a form (the placeholder, in our example).

Get started by crafting the interface that controls what settings your field has.

Extending the Default Type Settings

To add type settings, you need a *TypeSettings class that extends DefaultDDMFormFieldTypeSettings. Since this example works with a Time field type, call it TimeDDMFormFieldTypeSettings.

This class sets up the Add [Field Type] configuration form.

Figure 1: Like your custom field types, the text field types settings are configured in a Java interface.

Figure 1: Like your custom field types, the text field type's settings are configured in a Java interface.

Here’s what it looks like:

package com.liferay.docs.ddm.time;

import ...

@DDMForm
@DDMFormLayout(
    paginationMode = com.liferay.dynamic.data.mapping.model.DDMFormLayout.TABBED_MODE,
    value = {
        @DDMFormLayoutPage(
            title = "basic",
            value = {
                @DDMFormLayoutRow(
                    {
                        @DDMFormLayoutColumn(
                            size = 12,
                            value = {"label", "required", "tip", "mask", "placeholder"}
                        )
                    }
                )
            }
        ),
        @DDMFormLayoutPage(
            title = "properties",
            value = {
                @DDMFormLayoutRow(
                    {
                        @DDMFormLayoutColumn(
                            size = 12,
                            value = {
                                "predefinedValue", "visibilityExpression",
                                "fieldNamespace", "indexType", "localizable",
                                "readOnly", "dataType", "type", "name",
                                "showLabel", "repeatable"
                            }
                        )
                    }
                )
            }
        )
    }
)
public interface TimeDDMFormFieldTypeSettings
    extends DefaultDDMFormFieldTypeSettings {

    @DDMFormField(label = "%mask", predefinedValue="%I:%M %p")
    public String mask();

    @DDMFormField(label = "%placeholder")
    public String placeholder();

}

Would you look at that! Most of the work you need to do is in the class’s annotations.

In this class you’re setting up a dynamic form with all the settings your form field type needs. The form layout presented here gives your form the look and feel of a native form field type. See the note below for more information on the DDM annotations used in this form.

One thing to note is that all the default settings must be present in your settings form. Note the list of settings present for each tab (each @DDMFormLayoutPage) above. If you need to make one of the default settings unusable in the settings form for your field type, configure a hide rule for the field. Form field rules are configured using the @DDMFormFieldRule annotation. More information on configuring form rules will be written soon.

Your interface is extending the DefaultDDMFormfieldTypeSettings class. That’s why the default settings are available to use in the class annotation, without setting them up in the class, as was necessary for the mask and placeholder.

Once your *TypeSettings class is finished, move on to update the *Renderer class for your form field type.

Updating the Renderer Class

To send the new configuration settings to the Soy template so they can be displayed to the end user, you need to modify the *DDMFormFieldRenderer.

Add this method to TimeDDMFormFieldRenderer:

@Override
protected void populateOptionalContext(
	Template template, DDMFormField ddmFormField,
	DDMFormFieldRenderingContext ddmFormFieldRenderingContext) {

	template.put(
		"placeholder", (String)ddmFormField.getProperty("placeholder"));

    template.put(
        "mask", (String)ddmFormField.getProperty("mask"));	

    }

The populateOptionalContext method takes three parameters: The template object, the DDMFormField, and the DDMFormFieldRenderingContext. The DDMFormField represents the definition of the field type instance: you can use this object to access the configurations set for the field type (the mask and placeholder settings in our case). The DDMFormFieldRenderingContext object contains extra information about the form such as the user’s locale, the HTTP request and response objects, the portlet namespace, and more (all of its included properties can be found here.

You’re putting the new settings into the template object, which is just an extension of a Map that takes a String and an Object (in this case the Object is the property configured in the @DDMFormField in your *TypeSettings class, retrieved by the name of the field: placeholder and mask, respectively.

Now the JavaScript component and the Soy template can access the new settings. Next, update the JavaScript Component so it handles these properties and can use them, whether passing them to the template context (similar to the *Renderer, only this time for client-side rendering), or using them to configure the behavior of the JavaScript component itself.

Next configure the JavaScript component to include the new settings.

Adding Settings to the JavaScript Component

The JavaScript component needs to know about the new settings. First configure them as attributes of the component:

ATTRS: {
    mask: {
        value: '%I:%M %p'
    },
    placeholder: {
        value: ''
    },
    type: {
        value: 'time'
    }
},

The mask setting has a default value of %I:%M %p, and the placeholder is blank. Now that the new settings are declared as attributes of the component, make the JavaScript component pass the placeholder configuration to the Soy template on the client side. Just like in the Java renderer, pass the placeholder configuration to the template context. In this case, override the getTemplateContext() method to pass in the placeholder configuration. Add this to the prototype section of the JavaScript component definition:

getTemplateContext: function() {
    var instance = this;

return A.merge(
    TimeField.superclass.getTemplateContext.apply(instance, arguments),
        {
        placeholder: instance.get('placeholder')
        }
    );
},

Then in the component’s render method, add the mask as an attribute of the AUI Timepicker using mask: instance.get('mask').

       render: function() {
        var instance = this;

        TimeField.superclass.render.apply(instance, arguments);

        instance._timePicker = new A.TimePicker(
            {
                trigger: instance.getInputSelector(),
                mask: instance.get('mask'),
                popover: {
                    zIndex: 1
                }
            }
        );
    }

Now the field type JavaScript component is configured to include the settings. All you have left to do is to update the Soy template so the placeholder can be rendered in the form with the time field.

Updating the Soy Template

After all that, adding the placeholder setting to your Soy template’s logic is simple.

The whole template is included below, but the only additions are in the commented section (adds the placeholder to the list of parameters–the ? indicates that the placeholder is not required), and then in the <input> tag, where you use the parameter value to configure the placeholder HTML property with the proper value.

{namespace ddm}

/**
 * Prints the DDM form time field.
 *
 * @param label
 * @param name
 * @param? placeholder
 * @param readOnly
 * @param required
 * @param showLabel
 * @param tip
 * @param value
 */
{template .time autoescape="deprecated-contextual"}
    <div class="form-group liferay-ddm-form-field-time" data-fieldname="{$name}">
        {if $showLabel}
            <label class="control-label">
                {$label}

                {if $required}
                    <span class="icon-asterisk text-warning"></span>
                {/if}
            </label>

            {if $tip}
                <p class="liferay-ddm-form-field-tip">{$tip}</p>
            {/if}
        {/if}

        <input class="field form-control" id="{$name}" name="{$name}" placeholder="{$placeholder}" {if $readOnly}readonly{/if} type="text" value="{$value}">
    </div>
{/template}

Why isn’t the mask parameter added to the Soy template? The mask is not needed in the template because it’s only used in the JavaScript for configuring the behavior of the timepicker. You don’t need the dynamic rendering of the soy template to take the mask setting and configure it in the form. The maskv set by the form builder is captured in the rendering of the timepicker itself.

Now when you build the project and deploy your time field, you have a fully developed time form field type, complete with the proper JavaScript behavior and with additional settings.

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