Agile Web Development Using Rails 6/

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Generating Forms

Generating Forms

Get familiar with the HTML forms using templates

We'll cover the following...

Gathering information using HTML form

HTML provides a number of elements, attributes, and attribute values that control how input is gathered. We could certainly hand-code our form directly into the template, but there is no need to do that.

In this chapter, we will cover a number of helpers that Rails provides to assist with this process.

HTML provides a number of ways to collect data in forms. A few of the more common means are shown below. Note that the form itself is not representative of any sort of typical use; in general, we’ll use only a subset of these methods to collect data.

A basic HTML form

Let’s look at the template that was used to produce that form:

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<%= form_for(:model) do |form| %> 
<p>
    <%= form.label :input %>
    <%= form.text_field :input, :placeholder => 'Enter text here...' %> 
</p>
<p>
    <%= form.label :address, :style => 'float: left' %>
    <%= form.text_area :address, :rows => 3, :cols => 40 %> 
</p>
<p>
    <%= form.label :color %>:
    <%= form.radio_button :color, 'red' %> 
    <%= form.label :red %>
    <%= form.radio_button :color, 'yellow' %> 
    <%= form.label :yellow %>
    <%= form.radio_button :color, 'green' %> 
    <%= form.label :green %>
</p>
<p>
    <%= form.label 'condiment' %>: 
    <%= form.check_box :ketchup %> 
    <%= form.label :ketchup %>
    <%= form.check_box :mustard %> 
    <%= form.label :mustard %>
    <%= form.check_box :mayonnaise %>
    <%= form.label :mayonnaise %> 
</p>
<p>
    <%= form.label :priority %>:
    <%= form.select :priority, (1..10) %> 
</p>
<p>
    <%= form.label :start %>:
    <%= form.date_select :start %> 
</p>
<p>
    <%= form.label :alarm %>:
    <%= form.time_select :alarm %> 
</p>
<% end %>

In the above template, we’ll see a number of labels, like the one in line 3. We use labels to associate text with an input field for a specified ...