By cwgordon7 on

One of the really powerful things about drupal is cck and the way it lets you create new node types or modify existing node types. Wouldn't it be great if there was a similarly powerful tool that let you construct and edit forms? I know the webforms module kind-of does this, but the tool I'm imagining would do much, much more: it would let you edit existing forms such as the user registration form, easily create multi-step forms, or create dynamic forms.

Before CCK, the only real way of creating a custom node type was to write a custom module. Now, all over drupal, I'm seeing people giving guidelines on how to create a custom form module, or people having trouble creating a custom form module. Instead of everyone going through all that effort, it would be much more efficient just to develop a "form construction kit"; this way, anyone who wants to create a custom, say, registration form, doesn't have to write their own module.

Before I or others start writing this module, does anyone else think that this is good idea?

Thanks,
cwgordon7

Comments

mikeschinkel’s picture

mikeschinkel commented

I was just yesterday thinking of something similar, though I was thinking of defining a "Drupal Forms Markup Language." My idea was to base it as closely on HTML forms as possible but with extensions that Drupal would need thus allowing a web developer to create a form in a language they would be familiar with. Don't know if or when I'll have the time to pursue that idea, though. But whatever form it takes (no pun intended) making Drupal forms more approachable would be a good thing, I think.

mikeschinkel’s picture

mikeschinkel commented

BTW, interesting initialism that your idea would form. Just don't call it the Forms/Update Constuction Kit or anything similar ;-)

<Sigh. Yes it is sophmoric humor, but alas!>

nickgs’s picture

nickgs commented

I am interested in this. You can use CCK to create new content types and in a sense forms but I agree a richer form creation tool would be helpful.

Has any progress been made with this?

Thanks.

Nick

jeffa’s picture

jeffa commented

How would you deploy your changes to your site with this tool to another site? For example -- use within a multi-sandbox devel / staging server / production server environment where each server utilizes its own Apache, MySQL, Drupal and CVS/SVN and all updates/changes are deployed in an upgrade package?

:O

It would be nice if such a tool would automatically manage the install and update hooks each module is provided with, to ensure that you can take your module code to another Drupal site and use it. I am not convinced that "all that effort" of writing custom modules is less of an effort than managing "database diffs" when it comes time to deploy your work.

Thoughts?

VeeLin’s picture

VeeLin commented

Interesting issue

V