30 Seconds on the Drupal Form API

It's pretty easy to forget all the details of the Drupal Forms API, so we'll stop for a minute for a very short review.

(This one is at ahah_demo/simple_form.)

You add a form to your page like this:

$output .= drupal_get_form('ahah_demo_simplest_form');
?>

Often that's done right from the hook_menu implementation.

The layout of a form is as below:

/**
* A Hello-world for Forms API (FAPI)
*/
function ajax_demo_simplest_form($form, &$form_state) {

$form['explanation'] = array(
'#type' => 'markup',
'#value' => '

',
);

$form['experience'] = array(
'#type' => 'select',
'#title' => t('What is your experience level in Drupal?'),
'#options' => array(
'expert' => t('Expert'),
'journeyman' => t('Journeyman'),
'beginner' => t('Beginner')),
);
$form['more'] = array(
'#type' => 'textfield',
'#title' => t("Say more about yourself"),
'#description' => t('Surely one word can\'t describe you.'),
);
$form['submit'] = array(
'#type' => 'submit',
'#value' => t('Click Me'),
);

return $form;
}

function ajax_demo_simplest_form_submit($form, &$form_state) {
drupal_set_message(t('You have claimed to be %experience: %more',
array(
'%experience'=>$form_state['values']['experience'],
'%more' => $form_state['values']['more'],
)
));
}
?>