kzwatkins / open311-forms-engine

User interface and lightweight backend to build forms that can be served as Open311 GeoReport v2 compliant service definitions. Originally forked from https://github.com/botskonet/jquery.formbuilder - A jQuery plugin for building forms, loading form structure from json/xml, and saving back to the server.

Overview

The jquery.Formbuilder plugin is a jQuery plugin that allows you add a form-creation, display, and basic validation tool into your application.

The API and example code has been left open for you to override, assuming that you want complete control over how the form data is saved and loaded. However we have provided some basic database loading/saving examples using PDO for MySQL.

Please report all issues, bugs, and feature suggestions to: https://snowy-evening.com/botsko/jquery-form-builder/

The tool interface is constructed using form data presented in JSON format by the server. The php class assists you with storing the data, generating the json, generating the html form, and processing the data.

A demo of this version may be found at http://experiments.botsko.net/tests/formbuilder/

Please feel free to fork the project and provide patches back. Please let us know how you're using this product!

Installation

The example code can be used without a database, but this particular fork that incoporates the Open311 schema is based on having a MySQL database for saving form fields. The instructions below are based on using Apache, MySQL, and PHP to run the app.

1. Add the files to a virtual host or directory available to Apache
2. Create a new MySQL database. For example: mysql> CREATE DATABASE formbuilder;
3. Initialize the new MySQL database with the included .sql file in /Formbuilder/sql/mysql.sql. For example: $ mysql -u root -p formbuilder < mysql.sql
4. Create a copy of /Formbuilder/db_settings.php.sample and name it db_settings.php
5. Edit db_settings.php with information on your MySQL server and database.
6. Load the website in your browser

Getting Started

The MySQL database doesn't come with any data, so when you first get started you wont have any existing forms to edit, but you can go ahead and create a new one. Currently the form is saved through javascript, but if you want to see links to get open311 compliant json or to edit that or other forms, you'll need to refresh the page.

Change Log

Version 0.4 - 20111215

• Removing old XML-based form loading system, moving to pure JSON
• Removing internal serialization system in favor of json formatting
• Adding example mysql storage methods to the load, save process (PDO-based so other databases may be used)
• Incorporated a required attribute bug fix: https://snowy-evening.com/botsko/jquery-form-builder/8/
• Dumped a ton of unnecessary complexity of encoding/decoding and array vars
• Changed process() to return an array of errors, not a string
• Added sample response saves to db, only on good validation

Version 0.3.1 - 20110722

• Corrected issue with reserved words breaking support for Safari, Opera, IE
• Corrected issue with example-save expecting old POST key

Version 0.3 - 20110619

• Compatible with latest jQuery, jQueryUI and jquery.scrollTo
• CSS moved into a separate file
• Applied jsbeautifier and jshint on code
• Added control box target element option
• Added localization support
• Improved dynamic loading, unique ID handling for multiple formbuilder-instances
• Removed scrollTo dependency in favour of jQuery.animate()
• Added json backend, to replace/as alternative to xml
• Example html switched to latest html doctype

Version 0.2 - 20100806

• Upgraded to scroll.to 1.4.2
• Added ability to sort form fields.
• Added in basic build scripts for easier releases
• Minor code cleanup
• Hash bug fix

Version 0.1 - 20090922

• Complete initial release using much of the functionality copied from AspenMSM, an excellent cms tool from Trellis Development.