Is there any helper functions to build forms in CKAN?

Question

I have to create a multipage form and was wondering if I can just follow Pylons documentation on helper functions to build forms in CKAN?

Is there any documentation in CKAN for creating forms? Please suggest the best approach.

Answer 1

CKAN forms usually import some macros located in ckan/templates/macros. Have a look at form.html and you'll get the idea. Also have a look at one of the examples (ckanext/example_idatasetform).

Basically you'd import the macros with {% import 'macros/form.html' as form %} and then build the form with those macros, like this:

{% block package_basic_fields_custom %}
{{ form.input('custom_text', label=_('Custom Text'), 
id='field-custom_text', placeholder=_('custom text'), 
value=data.custom_text, error=errors.custom_text, classes= ['control-medium']) }}
{% endblock %}   

AFAIK there's no special documention on how to create forms in CKAN. You should have a look at the relevant templates in ckan/templates/package

Answer 2

Yes, there is documentation for the built-in form element macros for CKAN 2.6.0a in the comments of /usr/lib/ckan/default/src/ckan/ckan/templates/macros/form.html, and also in the Frontend Development Guidelines, under Templating.

Note that the documentation tells you to add the line:

{% import 'macros/form.html' as form %}

but if you're overriding an existing template (using {% ckan_extends %}) you don't typically have to add this import line because that is usually already in place, or already included in a parent template.