ZF2 Form\Element\MultiCheckbox: how to get each item on a new line?

Question

I've been Googling this to no avail. I have a multi-checkbox form element in one of my forms. Here's the code I used to create it:

$this->add(array (
    'name' => 'thingyId',
    'type' => 'MultiCheckbox',
    'options' => array (
        'value_options' => $thingyArray,
    )
));

In my view script, I have this:

<?= $this->formRow($form->get('thingyId')); ?>

The form element shows up fine, but all of the checkboxes are on a single line. How do I get it so that each checkbox is on a new line?

Answer 1

If you view this link, you can see that the fourth argument is partial. So, you can use many ways to accomplish the task.

Method 1:

echo $this->formRow($element, null, null, 'template-file');

Now, create a template file named as template-file.phtml to render the element however you like.

//template-file.phtml
<span><?php echo $label; ?></span><br/>
<?php foreach ($element->getValueOptions() as $key => $value): ?>
    <input type="checkbox" name="<?php echo $element->getName() ?>[]" value="<?php echo      $value; ?>">
    <span><?php echo $key; ?></span><br/>
<?php endforeach; ?>

Method 2

Create your own view helper by extending the default helper.

namespace Application\View\Helper;

class MyFormRow extends \Zend\Form\View\Helper\FormRow
{
       /**
        * @var string
        */
       protected $partial = 'template-file';
}

Now, inform our application about our new helper in your module,

namespace Application;

class Module 
{
    public function getViewHelperConfig()
    {
        return array(
            'invokables' => array(
               'myFormRow' => 'Application\View\Helper\MyFormRow'
            )
        );
    }
}

Lastly use the helper:

echo $this->myFormRow($element);

Answer 2

I came across this question when I was having this issue myself. The code that was being used was the following:

<?php
$oMultiCheckboxField = $oForm->get('multicheckboxelement');
echo $this->formMultiCheckbox($oMultiCheckboxField);
?>

The only additional parameter you could pass to the formMultiCheckbox view helper was whether to append or prepend the label.

How I eventually chose to solve this is with the following code:

<?php
$oMultiCheckboxField = $oForm->get('multicheckboxelement');
$oMultiCheckboxViewHelper = new \Zend\Form\View\Helper\FormMultiCheckbox();
$oMultiCheckboxViewHelper->setSeparator('<hr>');
echo $oMultiCheckboxViewHelper->render($oMultiCheckboxField);
?>

From what I recall, ZF1 had the option to set the separator (I clearly remember this at least for radio buttons). Why there isn't a clearer way to do this in ZF2 is a bit puzzling. If there are better ways to do this, I would certainly like to know about it.