ISQ TAGLIB Form Generator

ISQ TagLib Overview

The "isq" (Aka I Ask You) tag extension library helps you to made HTML form simple.

Inspired by the "input" tag of The Apache Software Foundation (http://www.apache.org/), isq adds a support for client-side input validation by JavaScript checking.

Like the original library isq can prepopulate form element getting values back from a request or a JavaBean.

Enabling javascript check, you can easily choose which input are mandatory and which not before the form will be submitted.

Enjoy with "input", "checkbox", "select", "radio" and "textarea".

NOTICE:

This product includes software developed by The Apache Software Foundation (http://www.apache.org/).

Scenario

You can find useful using ISQ to build your registration or login form without spending a lot of time writing logical code to prepopulate fields or adding javascript checking

Without isq:

.....
......
<scipt language="JavaScript">

function myFormValidator(f){
	if (f.username.value == ""){
		alert('Please fill username');
		return false;
	}
	....
	....
	
	rerurn true;
}

</script>
			
<form name="LoginForm" method="POST" onSubmit="return myFormValidator(this);" > 

Username: <input type="text" name="user" value="<%=request.getParameter("user")%>" /></br>

Password: <input type="password" name="pass" value="<%=request.getParameter("pass")%>"/>

<input type="submit"/>

</form>

With ISQ:

<%-->
The taglib directive below imports the ISQ Library. 
--%>
<%@taglib uri="http://www.cianciolab.com/taglibs/taglib-isq" prefix="isq"%>
.....
.....
.....
<isq:form name="ISQ_Form" method="post" jsValidation="true" action="some.jsp">

 Username: <isq:text name="user" required="true" jsAlert="Please fill username"/>
 Password: <isq:text name="password" required="true" jsAlert="Please fill password"/>

 <input type="submit"/>

</isq:form>

That's it!

Retriving values explanation

Like the "input" taglib provided by The Apache Software Foundation, ISQ looks for value by:

Bean

ServletRequest

Default attribute

At first ISQ looks for a bean named as bean attribute of the tag or for main form's bean attribute. If exists a getter with the same name of the tag's name attribute then that property is the value of the tag.

Then if request (POST or GET) contains a value named as one of the tags present into the ISQ "form", so that value is the value of the tag

At least, if a value has not found and the default attribute is filled, then that value is the value of the tag

JavaScript Validation support overview

To enable this feature just add jsValidation=true into isq:form tag
For each fields with attribute required=true, a simple javascript cheking mathod against empty values will be added after jsp compilation

The output source of the scenario above looks like this:


<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
   "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">

<html>
    <head>
        <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
        <title>ISQ Example</title>
    </head>
    <body>

    <script language="JavaScript">
function ISQ_FormValidator_ISQ_DemoForm(f){
//Text checking//
	var INPUT_username= f.username;
	var W_INPUT_username= 'Please fill Username field';
	if (INPUT_username.value == ""){
		alert(W_INPUT_username);
		if (INPUT_username.focus){
			INPUT_username.focus();
		}
		return false;
	}

//Text checking//
	var INPUT_password= f.password;
	var W_INPUT_password= 'Please fill Password field';
	if (INPUT_password.value == ""){
		alert(W_INPUT_password);
		if (INPUT_password.focus){
			INPUT_password.focus();
		}
		return false;
	}

}
</script>
<form name="ISQ_DemoForm" onSubmit="return ISQ_FormValidator_ISQ_DemoForm(this);" >
    Username:<input type="text" name="username" value="" /><br/>
    Username:<input type="text" name="password" value="" /><br/>
    <input type="submit" value="Submit Form"/>
    </form>

    </body>
</html>

Extending JavaScript validation

ISQ provide you a simple tag isq:jschek for appending custom JavaScript code at the generated control function:

<isq:form name="ISQ_Form" method="post" jsValidation="true" action="some.jsp">

 Username: <isq:text name="user" required="true" jsAlert="Please fill username"/>
 Password: <isq:text name="password" required="true" jsAlert="Please fill password"/>

 <input type="submit"/>
<isq:jscheck>
	//Custom javascript
	if (!confirm("Are you shure?")) return false;
</isq:jschek>
</isq:form>

Installation

Requirements

Tag list

JSP Tag	Summary
form	Creates a form tag
text	Displays a text box
password	Displays password box
hidden	Creates a hidden field
textarea	Displays a textarea
select	Displays a select
option	Displays a select option (used in conjuction with select)
radiogroup	Initialize a radiobutton group
radio	Displays a radio button (used in conjuction with radio)
checkbox	Displays a checkbox
jscheck	Add custom js code

Note

For sensible data i suggest you to add a server side validation too

Still beta!

ISQ is still beta! That means is not enough tested, documentation could be inaccurate and tag's usage or API call could be changed

taglib-isq Make form easy from JSP