Outputting required field indicator for symfony forms - symfony1

Question

I have a few forms configured in symfony. One things I need is to have an asterisk (*) or other indicator next to fields that are required. The fields are all set to required int he form framework, and return a "this field is required" error when the form is submitted, but I want an indicator before the form is submitted.
If there any way to do this without overriding the labels for each field manually?

Answer 1

Here's an automatic solution found in Kris Wallsmith's blog:
lib/formatter/RequiredLabelsFormatterTable.class.php, this will add a 'required' class to the labels of required fields
<?php
class RequiredLabelsFormatterTable extends sfWidgetFormSchemaFormatterTable
{
protected
$requiredLabelClass = 'required';
public function generateLabel($name, $attributes = array())
{
// loop up to find the "required_fields" option
$widget = $this->widgetSchema;
do {
$requiredFields = (array) $widget->getOption('required_fields');
} while ($widget = $widget->getParent());
// add a class (non-destructively) if the field is required
if (in_array($this->widgetSchema->generateName($name), $requiredFields)) {
$attributes['class'] = isset($attributes['class']) ?
$attributes['class'].' '.$this->requiredLabelClass :
$this->requiredLabelClass;
}
return parent::generateLabel($name, $attributes);
}
}
lib/form/BaseForm.class.php, this is the common base class for all the forms in your project:
protected function getRequiredFields(sfValidatorSchema $validatorSchema = null, $format = null)
{
if (is_null($validatorSchema)) {
$validatorSchema = $this->validatorSchema;
}
if (is_null($format)) {
$format = $this->widgetSchema->getNameFormat();
}
$fields = array();
foreach ($validatorSchema->getFields() as $name => $validator) {
$field = sprintf($format, $name);
if ($validator instanceof sfValidatorSchema) {
// recur
$fields = array_merge(
$fields,
$this->getRequiredFields($validator, $field.'[%s]')
);
} else if ($validator->getOption('required')) {
// this field is required
$fields[] = $field;
}
}
return $fields;
}
add the following few lines to BaseForm as well, in the __construct() method:
$this->widgetSchema->addOption("required_fields", $this->getRequiredFields());
$this->widgetSchema->addFormFormatter('table',
new RequiredLabelsFormatterTable($this->widgetSchema)
);
After all this, all your labels will have the required class, use whatever css you need to mark it to the user.

Answer 2

What about the simpler solution from the original cookbook - just a few lines in twig:
http://symfony.com/doc/2.1/cookbook/form/form_customization.html#adding-a-required-asterisk-to-field-labels

Answer 3

you can set the field's class as part of the constructor of the sfWidget
i.e.
$this->widgetSchema['form_field'] = new sfWidgetFormInput(array(), array('class' => 'required_field'));
Note: this is assuming you're not on the ancient sfForms (ala 1.0)
UPDATE
here is some CSS code from techchorus.net to show the required asterisk
.required
{
background-image:url(/path/to/your/images/dir/required-field.png);
background-position:top right;
background-repeat:no-repeat;
padding-right:10px;
}

Answer 4

I did it using Javascript:
$('form').find('select, input, textarea').each(function(){
if($(this).attr('required') == 'required'){
$label = $('label[for='+ $(this).attr('id') +']');
if($label.find('.required-field').length == 0){
$label.append('<span class="required-field">*</span>');
}
}
});