Zend Framework forms, decorators and validation: should I go back to plain HTML?

I too find the default decorators to be a massive pain. I understand why they are the way they are, but I think the 'inconvenience factor' has been grossly underestimated.

Anyway, I would recommend using ViewScripts for your forms. Note that these are not the same as Views -- instead, ViewScripts are referenced explicitly in your Form class, act as a "sub-view" of sorts and allow you to control the layout of each and every element. Examples how to use ViewScripts have been somewhat hard to find in the past, but I'll try to take a stab at providing something useful.

First, override loadDefaultDecorators in your form class:

public function loadDefaultDecorators() {     $this->setDecorators(         array(             array('ViewScript',                  array('viewScript' => 'foo/bar.phtml')             )          )      );        } 

This will reference a ViewScript named bar.phtml located in /views/scripts/foo. Note the case-sensitive differences in "ViewScript" and "viewScript" above.

Next, you'll have to tweak the decorators applied to each element to ensure it displays but without the annoying dt/dd wrappers. For instance:

$baz = new Zend_Form_Element_Text('bazInput');$baz->setDecorators(array('ViewHelper','Errors')); 

Finally, you'll need to build your ViewScript, such as:

<form method="post" action="<?php echo $this-element->getAction() ?>">    <table>        <tr>            <td><label for="bazInput">Baz:</label></td>            <td><?php echo $this->element->bazInput ?></td>        </tr>    </table>    <input type="submit" value="Submit Form" /></form>

Obviously this is a very simple example, but it illustrates how to reference the form elements and form action.

Then in your View, simply reference and output your form as usual. This way you can have much finer control over your form layouts -- to include easily adding Javascript.

I believe this approach resolves both your requirements: you can build forms in plain HTML and still take advantage of the Zend Form validation mechanism.

I have been using as many Zend components as possible over the past 10 months, on a large project, and Zend_Form has been the biggest pain in the ***. The forms are slow to render, and hard to make pretty. Don't even get me started on Sub-Forms. I saw an interesting article called "scaling zend_form" but it didn't seem to help much with render speed :(

I am thinking about making all my forms using straight HTML in the view, and only using Zend_Form to do the validation and filtering (not rendering). Either that, OR I will just use Zend_Validate and Zend_Filter, without the Form aspect at all.

A tool is only a tool if it helps you. Otherwise, it's just a hindrance.

Here's what I've learned with Zend_Form:

Let it do it's thing, and it will save you a ton of lines of code in the long run.

The trade off is you end up writing more CSS to get things to display the way you want to. Remember, almost any HTML element can be styled to look like anything. By default, Zend_Form gives you plenty of CSS selectors to get as specific (or broad) as you need to get. I've yet to see a case where I couldn't work the default decorators in to exactly what I wanted them to be.

Granted, I have a big, ugly CSS file, but in my experience, it would probably be a big, ugly CSS file eventually anyways. I take the trade off of not worrying about application specific form coding/validation/filtering/handling/etc but dealing with some specifically styled elements in a CSS file.

Tip if you decide to go this route: make sure you're using a CSS style reset script