Zend Form display groups decorators example

In my previous posts I discussed creation of zend form and decorators. These features are very helpful and quite easy to use.
However to give better look and feel to your form you will need to study Zend From display groups.
Display groups are used to group form elements for display purposes, so they give new look and feel to your forms. The name
of the form elements remain the same however elements in the same group are render together.
The most common use case would be to use display groups to put your form element in different field sets.

Your may require similar type of layout for your form in your application. It is very simple to achieve this layout. The code

is given bellow.
Before explaining the code I would like to tell you that Zend Form uses Zend_Form_ DisplayGroup class define in
Zend/Form/DisplayGroup.php for display groups.
This class contains all the necessary attributes and methods to handle Zend Form display groups.

<?php
class SimpleForm extends Zend_Form
{
    public function __construct($options = null)
    {
    
        parent::__construct($options);
        $countryList=array('USA','UK');
        $firstName =  $this->createElement('text', 'firstName');
        $firstName->setLabel('First Name')
                ->setAttrib('size',25)
                ->addValidator('StringLength', false,array(3,50))
                ->setValue('')
                ->setRequired(true);
        
        $lastName =  $this->createElement('text', 'lastName');
        $lastName->setLabel('Last Name:')
                ->setAttrib('size', 25)
                ->addValidator('StringLength', false,array(3,50))
                ->setValue('')
                ->setRequired(true);
        
        $address1 =  $this->createElement('text', 'address1');
        $address1->setLabel('Address1:')
                ->setAttrib('size', 25)
                ->addValidator('StringLength', false,array(3,50))
                ->setValue('')
                ->setRequired(true);
        
        $address2 =  $this->createElement('text', 'address2');
        $address2->setLabel('Address2:')
                ->setAttrib('size', 25)
                ->addValidator('StringLength', false,array(3,50))
                ->setValue('')
                ->setRequired(false);
        
        $postalCode =  $this->createElement('text', 'postalCode');
        $postalCode->setLabel('Postalcode:')
                ->setAttrib('size', 25)
                ->addValidator('StringLength', false,array(3,15))
                ->setValue('')
                ->setRequired(false);
        
        $city = $this->createElement('text', 'city');
        $city->setLabel('City:')
                ->setAttrib('size', 25)
                ->setValue('')
                ->setRequired(false)
                ->setAttrib('tabindex','6');
        
        $state = $this->createElement('text', 'state');
        $state->setLabel('State:')
                ->setAttrib('size', 6)
                ->setAttrib('maxlength', 2)
                ->setValue('')
                ->setRequired(false)
                ->setAttrib('tabindex','7');
        
        $country = $this->createElement('select', 'country');
        $country->setLabel('Country:')
                ->setAttrib('class','select')
                ->addMultiOptions($countryList)
                ->setRequired(false);
        
        $phone = $this->createElement('text', 'phone');
        $phone->setLabel('Phone:')
                ->setAttrib('size', 25)
                ->setAttrib('maxlength', '25')
                ->setValue('')
                ->setRequired(true);
        
        $emailAddress =  $this->createElement('text', 'emailAddress');
        $emailAddress->setLabel('Email:')
                ->setAttrib('size', 25)
                ->addValidator('StringLength', false,array(5,50))
                ->addValidator('EmailAddress')
                ->setValue('')
                ->setRequired(true);
                
        $website = $this->CreateElement('text','website');
        $website->setLabel("Website:")
                ->setAttrib('size', 25);
        
        $userName =  $this->createElement('text', 'userName');
        $userName->setLabel('Username:')
                ->setAttrib('size', 25)
                ->addValidator('StringLength', false,array(5,50))
                ->setValue('')
                ->setRequired(true);
        
        $password =  $this->createElement('password','password');
        $password->setLabel('Password:')
                ->setAttrib('size', 25)
                ->addValidator('StringLength', false,array(3,50))
                ->setRequired(true)
                ->setValue('')
                ->setIgnore(false);
        
        $confirmPassword =  $this->createElement('password','confirmPassword');
        $confirmPassword->setLabel('Confirm Password:')
                    ->setAttrib('size', 25)
                    ->addValidator('StringLength', false,array(3,50))
                    ->setRequired(true)
                    ->setValue('')
                    ->setIgnore(false);
        
        $this->addElements( array (
        
                            $firstName,
                            $lastName,
                            $address1,
                            $address2,
                            $postalCode,
                            $city,
                            $state,
                            $country,
                            $phone,
                            $emailAddress,
                            $website,
                            $userName,
                            $password,
                            $confirmPassword
                            )
                );
        
        $this->addDisplayGroup(array(
        
                    'firstName',
                    'lastName',
                    'userName',
                    'address1',
                    'address2',
                    'postalCode',
                    'city',
                    'state',
                    'country',
                    'phone'
        
            ),'contact',array('legend' => 'Contact Information'));
        
        $contact = $this->getDisplayGroup('contact');
        $contact->setDecorators(array(
        
                    'FormElements',
                    'Fieldset',
                    array('HtmlTag',array('tag'=>'div','style'=>'width:50%;;float:left;'))
        ));
        
        $this->addDisplayGroup(array(
        
                    'password',
                    'confirmPassword',
        
        ),'pass',array('legend' => 'Password'));
        
        $pass = $this->getDisplayGroup('pass');
        $pass->setDecorators(array(
        
                'FormElements',
                'Fieldset',
                array('HtmlTag',array('tag'=>'div','openOnly'=>true,'style'=>'width:48%;;float:right'))
        ));
        
        $this->addDisplayGroup(array(
        
                'emailAddress',
                'website',
        
        ),'web',array('legend' => 'Web Information'));
        
        $web = $this->getDisplayGroup('web');
        $web->setDecorators(array(
        
                'FormElements',
                'Fieldset',
                array('HtmlTag',array('tag'=>'div','closeOnly'=>true))
        ));
        
        $this->setDecorators(array(
                'FormElements',
                array('HtmlTag',array('tag'=>'div','style'=>'width:98%')),
                'Form'
        ));
    
    }
}

The code above is very simple to explain.
we are extending Zend_Form as usual,define our constructor and call parent class constructor. You can override init() method
of Zend_Form and place the above code in that function.
Next we create elements and add to the form using addElements() method.
Next lines are important. beacuse we are define our display groups and decorators in these lines.

$this->addDisplayGroup(array(
        
                    'firstName',
                    'lastName',
                    'userName',
                    'address1',
                    'address2',
                    'postalCode',
                    'city',
                    'state',
                    'country',
                    'phone'
        
            ),'contact',array('legend' => 'Contact Information'));
        
        $contact = $this->getDisplayGroup('contact');
        $contact->setDecorators(array(
        
                    'FormElements',
                    'Fieldset',
                    array('HtmlTag',array('tag'=>'div','style'=>'width:50%;;float:left;'))
        ));

Zend_Form setDisplayGroup() method take three arguments i.e. array of elements, name of display group and optional parameters
array.
we are giving our first display group a name “contact”.
then we get reference of display group and set its decorators using setDecorators method of the DisplayGroup class.
thats is. enjoy.
if you need extra information, post your questions.