building views using OOP

[private_click]

hello there.
recently while i was coding i was thinking about using classes when coding actual HTML for the views.
let's say i want to build a drop down menu, something like

<select name="selectfield">
 <option value="o1">Option1</option>
 <option value="o2">Option2</option>
</select>

should i build this kind of things using classes ?
something like:

$list1=new list();
$list1->setOptions($optionsArray);
$list1->setSelected("Options1");
$list1->printList();

so what do you think about this? should i use old-school coding or OOP in such cases?
pls don't laugh if it's a noob question, i just started with OOP 😃

[NogDog]

I'd be more inclined to put the various options into the method arguments, for instance:

<?php
/**
 * Helper functions for HTML forms
 */
class HTMLForm {
   /**
    * Create <select>
    * @param string $name Element name and ID
    * @param array $data Option data
    * @param string $selected Key of selected element in $data [optionsl]
    * @return string
    */
   public static function select($name, $data, $select = null)
   {
      $html = "<select name='$name' id='$name'>\n";
      foreach($data as $key => $value)
      {
         $html .= sprintf(
            "<option value='%s'%s>%s</oprion>\n",
            htmlspecialchars($key, ENT_QUOTES),
            (!empty($select) && $select == $key) ? " selected='selected'" : '',
            htmlspecialchars($value, ENT_QUOTES)
         );
      }
      $html .= "</select>\n";
      return $html;
   }
}

// SAMPLE USAGE:
$data = array(1 => 'foo', 'bar');
echo HTMLForm::select('test', $data, 2);

Output:

<select name='test' id='test'>
<option value='1'>foo</oprion>
<option value='2' selected='selected'>bar</oprion>
</select>

[Kudose]

In addition, you could have the class method return $this and chain the commands together.

i.e.

$form->new('myForm')->addSelect('mySelect')->addOptions(
  array(
    array('value' => 1, 'text' => 'First'), 
    array('value' => 2, 'text' => 'Second')
  )
);

[BuzzPHP]

Sorry for the self promotion. 🙂 Take a look at Buzz PHP.

http://www.buzzphp.com/

Its LGPL so im not making money from it, but, rip whatever ideas you want from the code. Look in CInput.php for all your INPUT based html tags.

Its a lot to take in, but thats the best I can offer if you are asking what I would do.

After all, that is what I did.

Pure logic really.

[code_monger]

I think it's a good software design question, private_click.

90% of the time, I do something similar to NogDog's code. The other 10%, I'm using some API or template engine with a built-in list generator, like Smarty.

I would probably only create a list class if I were creating a generic Form class, or if I wanted multiple types of common, reusable lists for a project -- or if I just wanted to leave room for them.

E.g. I would create a simple List base class, and then derive several other enhanced lists (containing JavaScript, etc.).

class BaseList { ... }
class EditableList extends BaseList { ... }
class DrillDownList extends BaseList { ... }

If I were making a generic Form class, BaseList would likely be derived from a generic form Element class.