Create a HTML table where each TR is a FORM

Question

I'm trying to create a table where each row is a form. I want that each input is in a different table division, but I still need that for example, all first inputs belong to the same table head and so on.

What I'm trying to do is an editable grid, more or less this:

<table>
    <tr>
        <form method="GET" action="whatever">
            <td><input type="text"/></td>
            <td><input type="text"/></td>
        </form>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <form method="GET" action="whatever">
            <td><input type="text"/></td>
            <td><input type="text"/></td>
        </form>
    </tr>
</table>

But apparently I cannot arrange the tags in that way (or so is what the w3c validator said).

Any good way to do this?

Answer 1

You may have issues with column width, but you can set those explicitly.

<table>
  <tr>
    <td>
       <form>
         <table>
           <tr>
             <td></td> 
             <td></td> 
             <td></td> 
             <td></td> 
             <td></td> 
             <td></td> 
           </tr>
         </table>
       </form>
     </td>
    </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>
       <form>
         <table>
           <tr>
             <td></td> 
             <td></td> 
             <td></td> 
             <td></td> 
             <td></td> 
             <td></td> 
           </tr>
         </table>
       </form>
     </td>
    </tr>
  </table>

You may want to also consider making it a single form, and then using jQuery to select the form elements from the row you want, serialize them, and submit them as the form.

See: http://api.jquery.com/serialize/

Also, there are a number of very nice grid plugins: http://www.google.com/search?q=jquery+grid&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

Answer 2

If you can use javascript and strictly require it on your web, you can put textboxes, checkboxes and whatever on each row of your table and at the end of each row place button (or link of class rowSubmit) "save". Without any FORM tag. Form than will be simulated by JS and Ajax like this:

<script type="text/javascript">
$(document).ready(function(){
  $(".rowSubmit").click(function()
  {
     var form = '<form><table><tr>' + $(this).closest('tr').html() + '</tr></table></form>';
     var serialized = $(form).serialize(); 
     $.get('url2action', serialized, function(data){
       // ... can be empty
     }); 
   });
});        
</script>

What do you think?

PS: If you write in jQuery this:

$("valid HTML string")
$(variableWithValidHtmlString)

It will be turned into jQuery object and you can work with it as you are used to in jQuery.

Answer 3

Tables are not meant for this, why don't you use <div>'s and CSS?

Answer 4

I second Harmen's div suggestion. Alternatively, you can wrap the table in a form, and use javascript to capture the row focus and adjust the form action via javascript before submit.

Answer 5

If using JavaScript is an option and you want to avoid nesting tables, include jQuery and try the following method.

First, you'll have to give each row a unique id like so:

<table>
  <tr id="idrow1"><td> ADD AS MANY COLUMNS AS YOU LIKE  </td><td><button onclick="submitRowAsForm('idrow1')">SUBMIT ROW1</button></td></tr>
  <tr id="idrow2"><td> PUT INPUT FIELDS IN THE COLUMNS  </td><td><button onclick="submitRowAsForm('idrow2')">SUBMIT ROW2</button></td></tr>
  <tr id="idrow3"><td>ADD MORE THAN ONE INPUT PER COLUMN</td><td><button onclick="submitRowAsForm('idrow3')">SUBMIT ROW3</button></td></tr>
</table>

Then, include the following function in your JavaScript for your page.

<script>
function submitRowAsForm(idRow) {
  form = document.createElement("form"); // CREATE A NEW FORM TO DUMP ELEMENTS INTO FOR SUBMISSION
  form.method = "post"; // CHOOSE FORM SUBMISSION METHOD, "GET" OR "POST"
  form.action = ""; // TELL THE FORM WHAT PAGE TO SUBMIT TO
  $("#"+idRow+" td").children().each(function() { // GRAB ALL CHILD ELEMENTS OF <TD>'S IN THE ROW IDENTIFIED BY idRow, CLONE THEM, AND DUMP THEM IN OUR FORM
        if(this.type.substring(0,6) == "select") { // JQUERY DOESN'T CLONE <SELECT> ELEMENTS PROPERLY, SO HANDLE THAT
            input = document.createElement("input"); // CREATE AN ELEMENT TO COPY VALUES TO
            input.type = "hidden";
            input.name = this.name; // GIVE ELEMENT SAME NAME AS THE <SELECT>
            input.value = this.value; // ASSIGN THE VALUE FROM THE <SELECT>
            form.appendChild(input);
        } else { // IF IT'S NOT A SELECT ELEMENT, JUST CLONE IT.
            $(this).clone().appendTo(form);
        }

    });
  form.submit(); // NOW SUBMIT THE FORM THAT WE'VE JUST CREATED AND POPULATED
}
</script>

So what have we done here? We've given each row a unique id and included an element in the row that can trigger the submission of that row's unique identifier. When the submission element is activated, a new form is dynamically created and set up. Then using jQuery, we clone all of the elements contained in <td>'s of the row that we were passed and append the clones to our dynamically created form. Finally, we submit said form.

Answer 6

I had a problem similar to the one posed in the original question. I was intrigued by the divs styled as table elements (didn't know you could do that!) and gave it a run. However, my solution was to keep my tables wrapped in tags, but rename each input and select option to become the keys of array, which I'm now parsing to get each element in the selected row.

Here's a single row from the table. Note that key [4] is the rendered ID of the row in the database from which this table row was retrieved:

<table>
  <tr>
    <td>DisabilityCategory</td>
    <td><input type="text" name="FormElem[4][ElemLabel]" value="Disabilities"></td>
    <td><select name="FormElem[4][Category]">
        <option value="1">General</option>
        <option value="3">Disability</option>
        <option value="4">Injury</option>
        <option value="2"selected>School</option>
        <option value="5">Veteran</option>
        <option value="10">Medical</option>
        <option value="9">Supports</option>
        <option value="7">Residential</option>
        <option value="8">Guardian</option>
        <option value="6">Criminal</option>
        <option value="11">Contacts</option>
      </select></td>
    <td>4</td>
    <td style="text-align:center;"><input type="text" name="FormElem[4][ElemSeq]" value="0" style="width:2.5em; text-align:center;"></td>
    <td>'ccpPartic'</td>
    <td><input type="text" name="FormElem[4][ElemType]" value="checkbox"></td>
    <td><input type="checkbox" name="FormElem[4][ElemRequired]"></td>
    <td><input type="text" name="FormElem[4][ElemLabelPrefix]" value=""></td>
    <td><input type="text" name="FormElem[4][ElemLabelPostfix]" value=""></td>
    <td><input type="text" name="FormElem[4][ElemLabelPosition]" value="before"></td>
    <td><input type="submit" name="submit[4]" value="Commit Changes"></td>
  </tr>
</table>

Then, in PHP, I'm using the following method to store in an array ($SelectedElem) each of the elements in the row corresponding to the submit button. I'm using print_r() just to illustrate:

$SelectedElem = implode(",", array_keys($_POST['submit']));
print_r ($_POST['FormElem'][$SelectedElem]);

Perhaps this sounds convoluted, but it turned out to be quite simple, and it preserved the organizational structure of the table.