bluejayblues / core

The Form Tools core.

Form Tools Core

This repo contains the source code for the Form Tools Core. The Core provides the minimal code needed to run Form Tools on your server. The master branch contains the ongoing work on Form Tools 3, currently in alpha. Check out the release sections for earlier, stable releases.

Where we're at (Jan, 2018)

Last year I returned to work on Form Tools after a long (4 year!) break. There have been a lot of changes made to PHP and the various Form Tools code dependencies. The goal for the 3.0.0 rewrite was:

• Run on PHP 7.
• Upgrade Smarty
• Convert the codebase to object oriented
• move database interaction to use PDO

Right now it's well into the alpha. All modules, themes and the API have Form Tools 3-supported versions and I'm currently working towards getting it into beta. That means:

• ensuring all modules upgrades nicely from the last version of their Form Tools 2-friendly version
• getting the upgrade script back online
• fixing remaining bugs

PHP version compatibility

• Everything up to Form Tools Core 2.2.7 supports PHP 4.3 - 5.x.
• Form Tools Core 3.0.0 supports PHP 5.3 and later.

Installation

• For Form Tools 2 (stable), see the installation instructions here: https://docs.formtools.org/installation/
• For Form Tools 3 (alpha), download the alpha package from https://formtools.org/download/alpha.php

Upgrading

• For Form Tools 2, see the upgrade instructions here: https://docs.formtools.org/upgrading/
• For Form Tools 3, until the upgrade script is available, just download the latest version from the download page above and overwrite your old installation files. Same goes for the modules, theme and API.

What's changed in 3.0.0

Form Tools 3 looks virtually identical to 2 - the bulk of the changes are behind the scenes. But there are a few small visual/functional changes:

• The "Core Field Types" module has been incorporated into the Core code. The module no longer exists as a standalone module.

• I dropping the $g_unicode for SQL queries which has been enabled by default since a very early version of Form Tools.

• $dbSSLEnabled was also dropped. I don't see the point of non-unicode queries, so unless I hear otherwise it'll stay removed.

• All language files are now included in the main repo. "Get more..." link in the UI are removed.

• A lot of the internals have changed:

  • the hooks used to be tied to function name. Now we've gone object-oriented, the mapping has all changed. The upgrade process (when completed) will automatically update your database so it'll work seamlessly, but if you had custom hooks written in your own modules they will no longer continue to function.

• Folder path for "edit" section of forms now in /edit subfolder, like /add.

• Default max file upload size setting changed from 200KB to 500KB.

• When creating a new form, the Add Submission Button setting would have a default label of {$LANG.word_add_rightarrow}. The idea here was that by entering language string placeholders, users logging into the interface with different languages would see that button label localized in their own country. Interesting idea, weird implementation! I'm now going to be setting that value (and others) to be in the current language - "Add »" for English, in this case. The fields can still accept language placeholders for the tiny percentage of people that need this feature, but it'll be much clearer for the vast bulk of users that don't need this feature.

• The $g_delete_module_folder_on_uninstallation configuration option has been dropped. Now the uninstall step just uninstalls the script. I'll add a separate UI option to allow you to try to remove the module files.

Notes

• Composer is great, but I still want to distribute Form Tools in packages and not require users to have to do any command-line nonsense to get the script running. As such, the repo includes the vendor/ folder with all dependencies.
• Keep the very un- user/administrator class code for 3.0. Will refactor that all anyway for user roles in 4.0.
• combine all that displayPage/displayModulePage etc. code.

To fix:

• Minor bug: I was logged in on the Edit Client page. I deleted the config file & reinstalled. After clicking the "login" button on the last page of the installation process, it took me to the Edit Client page again throwing a bunch of errors. -- installation should wipe out sessions on the first page, I think. -- check that page with passing invalid client IDs. Should fail gracefully.

For Upgrading

• edit_submission_onload_resources setting in settings table was changed.
• Hooks Manager will need a full mapping of old to new methods.
• TinyMCE module needs some work. See comment in its upgrade method