web2py form read values in js

Question

I'm building a webpage in web2py.

The effect that I want to achieve is a form that one can submit in the usual way, but where the html page containing the form also features an html canvas which is managed by js code that is able to dynamically see the contents of the form. This enables a sort of preview to be seen live as the user changes the contents of the form and updated continuously prior to the user submitting the form.

It seems there are two challenges to doing this.

1.) web2py likes you to define forms in the controller which generates to form code automatically - I don't see a way to add extra elements in the middle of the form by editing the html page.

2.) I don't see any way to get js code to dynamically read the values entered into the form.

Any suggestions of how to do this would be much appreciated. I'm new to web2py but have spent quite a while trying to figure out how to get this working

Thanks!

Answer 1

1.) web2py likes you to define forms in the controller which generates to form code automatically - I don't see a way to add extra elements in the middle of the form by editing the html page.

Regarding the above, letting web2py generate the form HTML is an optional convenience. If you need custom markup, you can do that as you normally would. There are also ways to add form elements to web2py's server-side DOM representation of the form.

See:

• http://web2py.com/books/default/chapter/29/07/forms-and-validators#More-about-manipulation-of-FORMs
• http://web2py.com/books/default/chapter/29/07/forms-and-validators#Adding-extra-form-elements-to-SQLFORM
• http://web2py.com/books/default/chapter/29/07/forms-and-validators#SQLFORM-in-HTML
• http://web2py.com/books/default/chapter/29/07/forms-and-validators#Custom-forms