Hello, can we use *Panel (SplitPanel, HPanel....) ...

# kvision

[Jamy]

Hello, can we use *Panel (SplitPanel, HPanel....) in a FormPanel without loose databiding ? How can I manage my form layout ?

[Robert Jaros]

FormPanel was designed to be an example implementation of visual form component. The form logic is extracted to the From class, so FormPanel is just taking care of visualization. I've assumed users can just implement their own FormPanels.

[Robert Jaros]

So at the moment if you want customize your form layout, you need to create your own class similar to FormPanel.

[Robert Jaros]

But as FormPanel become quite complex, I'll take a look if something can be improved to make it more reusable.

[Robert Jaros]

I've added additional customContainer parameter for the FormPanel class. It will be available in 4.1.0 (I plan the release for this weekend). It will work like this:

formPanel<Form>(customContainer = HPanel(spacing = 20)) {
                add(Form::text, Text(label = "Text 1"))
                add(Form::text2, TextArea(label = "Text 2"))
            }

[Robert Jaros]

Please let me know it this change meets your needs.

[Jamy]

Sorry for not answering over the weekend.
If I understand correctly "customContainer" allows to change the "root" container of the form ? But it doesn't allow me to manage the whole layout ? Like a DSL build ?

[Robert Jaros]

So a different approach. No need to define any custom container. Use any layout you like, just bind the controls to the form with an extension function bind. Like this:

formPanel<Form> {
	hPanel(spacing = 5) {
		text(label = "text 1").bind(Form::text, required = true)
		vPanel(spacing = 5) {
			textArea(label = "text 2").bind(Form::text2)
			textArea(label = "text 3").bind(Form::text3)
		}
	}
}

What do you think? I personally really like this idea.

[Jamy]

Yes I like it ! Thank you for considering my request !