Charcoal UI

The UI package provides abstract tools for creating user interface elements.

Installation

composer require charcoal/ui

For Charcoal projects, the service provider can be registered from your configuration file:

{
    "service_providers": {
        "charcoal/ui/service-provider/ui": {}
    }
}

Example

use Charcoal\Config\GenericMetadata;
use Charcoal\Ui\Form\FormBuilder;
use Charcoal\Ui\Form\FormFactory;

$metadata = new GenericMetadata([
    'properties' => [
        'first_name' => [
            'type' => 'string',
        ],
        'last_name' => [
            'type' => 'string',
        ],
        'email' => [
            'type' => 'email',
        ],
    ],
]);

$formData = [
    'first_name' => 'Mathieu',
    'last_name'  => 'Ducharme',
    'email'      => 'mat@locomotive.ca',
];

$formConfig = [
    'type'           => 'charcoal/ui/form/generic'
    'template_ident' => 'foo/bar/form',
    'template_data'  => [],
    'label'          => 'Example Form',
    'groups'         => [
        'info' => [
            'layout' => [
                'structure' => [
                    'columns' => [
                        [ 1, 1 ],
                        [ 1 ],
                    ],
                ],
            ],
            'properties' => [
                'first_name',
                'last_name',
                'email',
            ],
        ],
    ],
];

$formBuilder = new FormBuilder([
    'form_factory' => new FormFactory(),
    'view'         => $container['view'],
]);

$form = $formBuilder->build($formConfig);
$form->setMetadata($metadata);
$form->setFormData($formData);

echo $form->render();

API

Base UI Item

All UI classes implements the same basic class: \Charcoal\Ui\UiItemInterface. This interface defines a basic set of properties that are shared across (almost) all ui item types.

Base UI Item config

Key	Type	Default	Description
type	string
title	string[1]
subtitle	string[1]
description	string[1]
notes	string[1]
template_ident	string	''	The default view template.

Notes:

• ^[1] Indicates a multilingual string (TranslationString).

View Integration

The UiItemInterface is a Viewable item; that means it also implements the \Charcoal\View\ViewableInterface. The AbstractUiItem fully implements this interface by using \Charcoal\View\ViewableTrait.

Viewable objects can set a View object with setView($view) have a template_ident (which can be set with setTemplateIdent($id)). See the charcoal/view module for details.

The easiest way to use a View is by setting a ViewInterface object as view service on a DI container / Service Provider.

Dashboard

Dashboards define a layout of widgets.

• layout is a LayoutInterface object that can be created with a LayoutBuilder.
• widgets is a collection of any UiItemInterface objects.
  • Any PHP class can actually be a "widget", but base widgets are provided as convenience.

Dashboard config

Key	Type	Default	Description
type	string
layout	LayoutConfig
widgets	array

Dashboard dependencies

• logger
• view
• widget_factory

Dashboard API

• setLayout()
• layout()
• setWidgets(array $widgets)
• widgets()
• addWidget()
• numWidgets()
• hasWidget()

Layout

Layouts define a grid (column-based) structure.

Layout config

Key	Type	Default	Description
structure	array
structure.columns	array

Example layout JSON config

"layout": {
    "structure": [
        { "columns": [ 2, 1 ] },
        { "columns": [ 1 ] },
        { "columns": [ 1 ] }
    ]
}

Layout API

• setStructure(array $layouts)
• structure()
• numRows()
• rowIndex($position = null)
• rowData($position = null)
• rowNumColumns($position = null)
• rowNumCells($position = null)
• rowFirstCellIndex($position = null)
• cellRowIndex($position = null)
• numCellsTotal()
• cellSpan($position = null)
• cellSpanBy12($position = null)
• cellStartsRow($position = null)
• cellEndsRow($position = null)
• start()
• end()

Layout Aware objects

The UI package has three basic objects that use a layout: dashboards, forms and form groups.

Those classes implement the Layout requirement by implementing the \Charcoal\Ui\Layout\LayoutAwareInterface with the use of its corresponding LayoutAwareTrait.

Form

Forms define a layout of form groups, form options, data and metadata.

• Forms have groups, which have inputs.
• Groups can be layouted with a layout object.
• Form can be pre-populated with form data.
• Metadata ca

Form config

Key	Type	Default	Description
type	string
action	string	''	URL where the form will be submitted.
method	string	'post'	HTTP method to submit ("post" or "get").
layout	LayoutConfig
groups	FormGroupConfig[]
form_data	array
metadata	array

Form dependencies

• view
• group_factory

Form API

• setAction($action)
• action()
• setMethod($method)
• method()
• setGroups(array $groups)
• groups()
• addGroup($groupIdent, $groupData)
• numGroups()
• hasGroups()
• setFormData(array $formData)
• formData()
• addFormData()

Form Group

Form group config

Key	Type	Default	Description
form
template_ident	string
template_controller	string
priority	int
layout	LayoutConfig
properties	array

Form group API

• setForm($form)
• setInputs(array $groups)
• inputs()
• addInput($inputIdent, $inputData)
• numInputs()
• hasInputs()

Form Input

• form
• label
• property_ident
• template_ident
• template_data
• read_only
• required
• disabled
• multiple
• input_id
• input_name

Menu

Menu Item

Menu items define a menu level (ident, label and url) and its children (array of Menu Item).

Menu item config

• ident
• icon_ident
• label
• url
• children

Menu item API

• setIdent($ident)
• ident()
• setLabel($label)
• label()
• setUrl($url)
• url()
• setChildren($children)
• children()
• numChildren()
• hasChildren()

Creational Helpers

Most UI elements are very dynamic. The types of object to create is often read from a string in a configuration object. Therefore, factories are the preferred way of instanciating new UI items.

Ui items have also many inter-connected dependencies. Builders should therefore be used for object creation / instanciation. They use a factory internally, and have a build($opts) methods that allow to retrieve class name from a dynamic source, do initialization, dpendencies management and more. Builders require Pimple for a DI container.

Factories

• \Charcoal\Ui\Dashboard\DashboardFactory
• \Charcoal\Ui\Layout\LayoutFactory
• \Charcoal\Ui\Form\FormFactory
• \Charcoal\Ui\FormGroup\FormGroupFactory
• \Charcoal\Ui\FormInput\FormInputFactory
• \Charcoal\Ui\Menu\MenuFactory
• \Charcoal\Ui\MenuItem\MenuItemFactory

Builders

• \Charcoal\Ui\Dashboard\DashboardBuilder
• \Charcoal\Ui\Layout\LayoutBuilder
• \Charcoal\Ui\Form\FormBuilder
• \Charcoal\Ui\FormGroup\FormGroupBuilder
• \Charcoal\Ui\FormInput\FormInputBuilder
• \Charcoal\Ui\Menu\MenuBuilder
• \Charcoal\Ui\MenuItem\MenuItemBuilder

Service Providers

Service providers are provided in the Charcoal\Ui\ServiceProvider namespace for for convenience. They are the recommended way of using the UI package, as they register all the creational utilities to a container, taking care of dependencies.

• \Charcoal\Ui\ServiceProvider\DashboardServiceProvider
  • dashboard/factory
  • dashboard/builder
• \Charcoal\Ui\ServiceProvider\FormServiceProvider
  • form/factory
  • form/builder
  • form/group/factory
  • form/input/factory
  • form/input/builder
• \Charcoal\Ui\ServiceProvider\LayoutServiceProvider
  • layout/factory
  • layout/builder
• \Charcoal\Ui\ServiceProvider\MenuServiceProvider
  • menu/factory
  • menu/builder
  • menu/item/factory
  • menu/item/builder
• \Charcoal\Ui\ServiceProvider\UiServiceProvider
  • Register all the other service providers (dashboard, form, layout and menu).

Resources

• Contributing
• Report issues and send pull requests in the main Charcoal repository