From: khaines@...
Date: 2008-01-24T04:35:42+09:00
Subject: Re: Quick ruby-powered html-forms?

On Wed, 23 Jan 2008, Casimir wrote:

> Personally, I am just trying to find the simplest, most intuitive (-> 
> fastest) way to create html code for forms. Styling (presentation) happens 
> entirely in css so it has nothing to do with form content. So I think you 
> have a slight misinterpretation there.

Styling isn't 100% an issue of CSS because of two factors.

1) Any specifics regarding ids or classes to be applied to particular form 
elements have to appear in the HTML.

2) Any pecularities regarding the form structure, which ultimately affect 
it's appearance in fundamental ways that CSS can't influence, is also part 
of the HTML.

So, given those two things, here's how I tend to deal with form generation 
in IOWA (iowa.swiftcore.org):

<form oid="do_something">
   <label>Choose a number</label>
   <listbox oid="number" list="{1..10}" />
   <submit value="That's my number!" oid="do_something" />
</form>

This keeps all of the low level details about managing the form out of the 
developer's hair.  The developer just lays out the structure, and expects 
that when the submit button is pressed, do_something() is called, and the 
number that was selected will be passed to the number=() accessor.


Kirk Haines