HTML-Accessors

Name

HTML::Accessors - Generate HTML elements

Version

0.5.$Rev: 105 $

Synopsis

use HTML::Accessors;

my $my_obj = HTML::Accessors->new();

       # Create an anchor element
       $anchor = $my_obj->a( { href => 'http://...' }, 'This is a link' );

Description

Uses HTML::GenerateUtil to create an autoload method for each of the elements defined by HTML::Tagset. The API was loosely taken from CGI. Using the CGI module is undesirable in a Catalyst application (run from the development server) due go greediness issues over STDIN.

The returned tags are either XHTML 1.1 or HTML 4.01 compliant.

Configuration and Environment

The constructor defines accessors and mutators for one attribute:

content_type

       Defaults to application/xhtml+xml which causes the generated tags
       to conform to the XHTML standard. Setting it to text/html will
       generate HTML compatible tags instead

Subroutines/Methods
new

my $my_obj = HTML::Accessors->new( content_type => q(application/xhtml+xml) );

Uses "arglist" to process the passed options

escape_html

my $escaped_html = $my_obj->escape_html( $unescaped_html );

Expose the method escape_html

is_xml

my $bool = $my_obj->is_xml;

Returns true if the returned tags will be XHTML. Matches the string .xml at the end of the content_type

popup_menu

my $html = $my_obj->popup_menu( default => $value, labels => {}, values => [] );

Returns the "<select>" element. The first option passed to "popup_menu" is either a hash ref or a list of key/value pairs. The keys are:

default

Determines which of the values will be selected by default

labels

       Display these labels in place of the values (but return the value of
       the selected label). This is a hash ref with a key for each element
       in the "values" array

values

       The key references an array ref whose values are used as the list of
       options returned in the body of the "<select>" element

The rest of the keys and values are passed as attributes to the "<select>" element. For example:

       $ref = { default => 1, name => q(my_field), values => [ 1, 2 ] };
       $my_obj->popup_menu( $ref );

would return:

       <select name="my_field">
          <option selected="selected">1</option>
          <option>2</option>
       </select>

radio_group
Generates a list of radio input buttons with labels. Break elements can be inserted to create rows of a given number of columns when displayed. The first option passed to "radio_group" is either a hash ref or a list of key/value pairs. The keys are:

columns

       Integer number of columns to display the generated buttons in. If
       zero then a list of radio buttons without breaks is generated

default

Determines which of the radio box will be selected by default

label_class

Class of the labels generated for each button

labels

       Display these labels next to each button. This is a hash ref with a
       key for each element in the "values" array

name

The form name of the generated buttons

onchange

       An optional Javascript reference. The JS will be executed each time a
       different radio button is selected

values

       The key references an array ref whose values are returned by the
       radio buttons

For example:

       $ref = { columns => 2,
                default => 1,
                labels  => { 1 => q(Button One),
                             2 => q(Button Two),
                             3 => q(Button Three),
                             4 => q(Button Four), },
                name    => q(my_field),
                values  => [ 1, 2, 3, 4 ] };
       $my_obj->radio_group( $ref );

would return:

       <label>
          <input checked="checked" tabindex="1" value="1" name="my_field" type="radio" />Button One
       </label>
       <label>
          <input tabindex="2" value="2" name="my_field" type="radio" />Button Two
       </label>
       <br />
       <label>
          <input tabindex="3" value="3" name="my_field" type="radio" />Button Three
       </label>
       <label>
          <input tabindex="4" value="4" name="my_field" type="radio" />Button Four
       </label>
       <br />

scrolling_list
Calls "popup_menu" with the "multiple" argument set to "multiple". This has the effect of allowing multiple selections to be returned from the popup menu

AUTOLOAD
Uses HTML::Tagset to check if the requested method is a known HTML element. If it is "AUTOLOAD" uses HTML::GenerateUtil to create the tag

If the first option is a hash ref then the keys and values are copied and passed to "HTML::GenerateUtil::generate_tag" which uses them to set the attributes on the created element. The next option is treated as the element's body text and overrides the "default" attribute which is passed and deleted from the options hash

If the requested element exists in the hard coded list of input elements, then the element is set to "input" and the mapped value used as the type attribute in the call to "generate_tag". For example;

$my_obj->textfield( { default => q(default value), name => q(my_field) } );

would return

The list of input elements contains; button, checkbox, hidden, image_button, password_field, radio_button, submit, and textfield

Carp and return "undef" if the element does not exist in isKnown

DESTROY
Implement the "DESTROY" method so that the "AUTOLOAD" method doesn't get called instead

arglist
Returns a hash ref containing the passed parameter list. Enables methods to be called with either a list or a hash ref as it's input parameters. Makes copies as it goes so that you can change the contents without altering the parameters if they were passed by reference

hashmerge
Simplistic merging of two hashes

Diagnostics

Carp is called to issue a warning about undefined elements

Dependencies

Class::Accessor::Fast
Class::C3
HTML::GenerateUtil
HTML::Tagset

Incompatibilities

There are no known incompatibilities in this module

Bugs and Limitations

There are no known bugs in this module. Please report problems to the address below. Patches are welcome

Author

Peter Flanigan, "<Support at RoxSoft.co.uk>"

Acknowledgements

Larry Wall - For the Perl programming language

License and Copyright

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself. See perlartistic.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.