How to Create Lightweight Form#

Out of the box, Silverstripe CMS provides a robust and reusable set of HTML markup for FormField, however this can sometimes produce markup which is unnecessarily bloated.

For example, a basic search form. We want to use the Form API to handle the form but we may want to provide a totally custom template to meet our needs. To do this, we'll provide the class with a unique template through setTemplate.

app/src/Page.php

public function SearchForm() 
{
    $fields = new FieldList(
        TextField::create('q')
    );

    $actions = new FieldList(
        FormAction::create('doSearch', 'Search')
    );

    $form = new Form($this, 'SearchForm', $fields, $actions);
    $form->setTemplate('SearchForm');

    return $form;
}

app/templates/Includes/SearchForm.ss

<form $FormAttributes>
    <fieldset>
        $Fields.dataFieldByName(q)
    </fieldset>
    
    <div class="Actions">
        <% loop $Actions %>$Field<% end_loop %>
    </div>
</form>

SearchForm.ss will be executed within the scope of the Form object so has access to any of the methods and properties on Form such as $Fields and $Actions.