Bug #1124

Default renderer does not provide valid xhtml: hidden cells

Details

Submitted	2004-04-03 23:41 UTC
From	thesaur at php dot net
Assigned	avb
Status	Closed
Package	HTML_QuickForm
PHP Version	Irrelevant
OS	Irrelevant
Roadmaps	(Not assigned)

Comments

[2004-04-03 23:41 UTC] thesaur at php dot net

Description:
------------
XHTML does not allow input to be outside a cell in a table. The following code:

$form = new HTML_QuickForm('student');
$form->removeAttribute('name');
$form->addElement('hidden', 'KursID', $kursid);
$form->addElement('text', 'name', 'Name:', array('size' => 50, 'maxlength' => 255));

$table->addRow(array($form));

generates the following output:

...snip...

48: <form action="example.php" method="post" id="student">
49: <table border="0">
50:
51: <input name="KursID" type="hidden" value="239" />
52: <tr>
53: <td align="right" valign="top">
54: <span class="required">*</span>
55: Name:
56: </td>
57: <td valign="top" align="left">
58: <span class="nowrap"><input size="50" maxlength="255" name="name" type="text" /></span>
59: </td>
60: </tr>

...snip...

This does not pass validation for either XHTML 1.0 Transitional or Strict. Of course, later versions of XHTML are even more picky.

It would be nice if this would at least be fixed. It effectively prevents QuickForm from being used for XHTML sites. Not quite sure how to fix it, of course. Perhaps a separate {hidden} unit would be a good idea. It could then be placed outside the table.

[2004-04-05 10:40 UTC] thesaur at php dot net

The solution I've come up with involves creating a separate table for each field/group. CSS takes care of the width. Of course, that will require an additional step (declaring cell widths), but I think it's the only solution at the moment that doesn't break everything.

I am considering submitting an XHTML renderer. The other option (preferred) is to incorporate it into the default renderer much like clearAllTemplates. At some point it will necessarily become the default mode of rendering, and we shouldn't ignore it too long.

Then the additional (optional) step would be to declare the label field width via CSS (inline style attribute).

[2005-02-16 21:50 UTC] pear at stevesapartment dot com

One suggestion (although the bug is closed, I know...)
Why not wrap the grouped hidden elements inside a
<fieldset> tag (it was designed for that purpose, I
believe - better than using div everywhere) and then
place this fieldset block directly after the <form> tag?
That would seem to solve the problem for XHTML
compliance and I'd think it wouldn't break the default
template or anybody's display either... the only caveat
would be that <fieldset> would probably need to be
styled as display:none...