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Output form

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Syntax

<txp:output_form />

The output_form tag can be used as a single or a container tag. Textpattern will replace this tag with the content resulting from the form template called by the tag.

The basic function of output_form is to take a particular form that defines a given set of scripting or HTML functions and output that set of functions anywhere in a particular web page. Think about your pages; many of them will use different article or link forms to display content unique to the particular page, but they’ll also have a lot of things in common, like the opening DOCTYPE declaration, calls to CSS, navigation menus, etc. Using output_form it’s possible to write these page elements once and use them anywhere.

From Textpattern CMS version 4.7.0 onwards, <txp:output_form form="my_form" /> can be invoked as ‘shortcode’ <txp::my_form /> if its name contains only alphanumeric characters.

For the container tag and/or shortcode usage, see the yield tag.

Attributes

Tag will accept the following attributes (case-sensitive) as well as the global attributes :

form="form name"
Use specified form.
Default: unset (no output).
format="value" v4.7.2+
Values: url, flat.url, image, flat.image, link, flat.link, script or flat.script (prepend values with flat. to fetch the form template from disk instead of from the database).
Default: unset.
context="attribute name" v4.7.2+
Values:
author.
c.
context.
id.
m.
month.
p.
pg.
q.
s.
Default: unset.
yield="boolean or list of names" v4.7.0+
Populate <txp:yield /> tags inside the form with the corresponding attributes.
Default: 1 (populate all attributes).

Examples

Example 1: Manage small pieces of static text

<txp:output_form form="copyright" />

You can use this tag in combination with a form to create small pieces of text that would not otherwise be managed as a regular article. For example you might define the copyright conditions of content on your site in a form and add that to one or more places via the output_form tag. Name the form copyright, save it as type misc and call the form using the tag structure.

Note: Staff Writers and Freelancers can not edit the contents of forms.

Example 2: Manage header for all pages

Suppose you want to manage the <head> section of your page template as a single-sourced block of content. You can create a form called head and save it as type misc. The content of the form might look like this for example:

<head>
    <meta charset="utf-8">
    <title>
        <txp:page_title />
    </title>
    <txp:css format="link" media="" />
    <meta name="generator" content="Textpattern CMS">
    <meta name="robots" content="index, follow">
    <txp:feed_link flavor="rss" format="link" label="RSS" />
</head>

Then in each of your pages, you insert the header using…

<txp:output_form form="head" />

or simply

<txp::head />

…which will add this <head> to all the pages automatically.

The advantage of this is that when you edit your page header, you can do so once in the form template and it will update all instances of use in your different pages at the same time.

Other tags used: css, feed_link, page_title.

Example 3: Shortcode to create HTML5 video code

Create a ‘misc’ type form template with the name media_video:

<div itemprop="video" itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/VideoObject">
    <video controls width="<txp:yield name="width" default="640" />" height="<txp:yield name="height" default="480" />"<txp:if_yield name="poster-url"> poster="<txp:yield name="poster-url" />"</txp:if_yield>>
        <source itemprop="contentUrl" type="video/mp4" src="<txp:yield name="mp4-url" />">
        <source itemprop="contentUrl" type="video/webm" src="<txp:yield name="webm-url" />">
    </video>
    <txp:if_yield name="name"><meta itemprop="name" content="<txp:yield name="name" />"></txp:if_yield>
    <txp:if_yield name="description"><meta itemprop="description" content="<txp:yield name="description" />"></txp:if_yield>
    <txp:if_yield name="poster-url"><meta itemprop="thumbnailUrl" content="<txp:yield name="poster-url" />"></txp:if_yield>
    <meta itemprop="uploadDate" content="<txp:posted format="iso8601" />">
    <txp:if_yield name="duration-seconds"><meta itemprop="duration" content="T<txp:yield name="duration-seconds" />S"></txp:if_yield>
</div>

This can now be called from within an article using the shortcode format:

<txp::media_video width="" height="" mp4-url="" webm-url="" poster-url="" name="" description="" duration-seconds="" />

poster-url, name, description and duration-seconds are optional for users, but if provided display valid Schema.org microdata.

For example:

<txp::media_video width="720" mp4-url="/video/example.mp4" webm-url="/video/example.webm" poster-url="/video/example.png" name="Cat video" description="My great video of cats." duration-seconds="20" />

Other tags used: if_yield, posted, yield.

Example 4: Longcode format

Suppose that the form of Example 3 is called media video. Then it can not be called using the shortcode format:

<txp::media video width="" height="" … />

because the parser will see it as <txp:output_form form="media" />. The solution consists to call <txp:output_form /> as usual:

<txp:output_form form="media video" width="" height="" … />

Example 5: Using yield attribute

Textpattern tries to distinguish between local and global form attributes, but sometimes it needs your help. Suppose that some hello form just outputs a greeting:

Hello, <txp:yield name="who" default="world" />!

If we call:

<txp::hello who="guest" wraptag="p" class="greeting" />

three <txp:yield /> stacks (i.e. class, who, wraptag) will be populated and ready for use inside the form. But the parser will detect that <txp:yield name="class" /> and <txp:yield name="wraptag" /> are not used and consider these attributes as global, wrapping the form output in <p class="greeting">…</p> HTML tag. This is fine, but suppose that later we decide to append to the greeting some contact form that uses class as local attribute:

<label class="<txp:yield name="class" />">Contact us</label>
…

The new hello form is thus:

Hello, <txp:yield name="who" default="world" />!
<txp::contact />

If we call now:

<txp::hello who="guest" wraptag="p" class="greeting" />

the parser will detect the presence of <txp:yield name="class" /> inside and unset the global class (but not wraptag) attribute, resulting in:

<p>
    Hello, guest!
    <label class="greeting">Contact us</label>
</p>

This can be fine, but if you want to keep greeting class on the wrapping p, just indicate explicitly which attributes should be local:

<txp::hello yield="who" who="guest" wraptag="p" class="greeting" />

Other tags used: yield.

Genealogy

Version 4.7.2

context and format attributes added.

Version 4.7.0

Can be used as shortcode.
yield attribute added.

Version 4.2.0

Can be used as a container tag.

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