Warning

Starting from CubicWeb version 4.0 all code related to generating html views has been moved to the Cube cubicweb_web.

If you want to migrate a project from 3.38 to 4.* while still using all the html views you need to both install the cubicweb_web cube AND add it to your dependencies and run add_cube('web').

cubicweb_web can be installed from pypi this way:

pip install cubicweb_web

We don’t plan to maintain the features in cubicweb_web in the long run; we are moving to a full javascript frontend using both cubicweb_api (which exposes a HTTP API) and @cubicweb/client as a frontend javascript toolkit.

In the long run cubicweb_api will be merged inside of CubicWeb.

The edit controller#

It can be found in (cubicweb.web.views.editcontroller). This controller processes data received from an html form to create or update entities.

Edition handling#

The parameters related to entities to edit are specified as follows (first seen in The attributes section):

<rtype-role>:<entity eid>

where entity eid could be a letter in case of an entity to create. We name those parameters as qualified.

  • Retrieval of entities to edit is done by using the forms parameters eid and __type

  • For all the attributes and the relations of an entity to edit (attributes and relations are handled a bit differently but these details are not much relevant here) :

    • using the rtype, role and __type information, fetch an appropriate field instance

    • check if the field has been modified (if not, proceed to the next relation)

    • build an rql expression to update the entity

At the end, all rql expressions are executed.

  • For each entity to edit:

    • if a qualified parameter __linkto is specified, its value has to be a string (or a list of strings) such as:

      <relation type>:<eids>:<target>
      

      where <target> is either subject or object and each eid could be separated from the others by a _. Target specifies if the edited entity is subject or object of the relation and each relation specified will be inserted.

    • if a qualified parameter __clone_eid is specified for an entity, the relations of the specified entity passed as value of this parameter are copied on the edited entity.

    • if a qualified parameter __delete is specified, its value must be a string or a list of string such as follows:

      <subjects eids>:<relation type>:<objects eids>
      

      where each eid subject or object can be seperated from the other by _. Each specified relation will be deleted.

  • If no entity is edited but the form contains the parameters __linkto and eid, this one is interpreted by using the value specified for eid to designate the entity on which to add the relations.

Note

  • if the parameter __action_delete is found, all the entities specified as to be edited will be deleted.

  • if the parameter __action_cancel is found, no action is completed.

  • if the parameter __action_apply is found, the editing is applied normally but the redirection is done on the form (see Redirection control).

  • if no entity is found to be edited and if there is no parameter __action_delete, __action_cancel, __linkto, __delete or __insert, an error is raised.

  • using the parameter __message in the form will allow to use its value as a message to provide the user once the editing is completed.

Redirection control#

Once editing is completed, there is still an issue left: where should we go now? If nothing is specified, the controller will do his job but it does not mean we will be happy with the result. We can control that by using the following parameters:

  • __redirectpath: path of the URL (relative to the root URL of the site, no form parameters

  • __redirectparams: forms parameters to add to the path

  • __redirectrql: redirection RQL request

  • __redirectvid: redirection view identifier

  • __errorurl: initial form URL, used for redirecting in case a validation error is raised during editing. If this one is not specified, an error page is displayed instead of going back to the form (which is, if necessary, responsible for displaying the errors)

  • __form_id: initial view form identifier, used if __action_apply is found

In general we use either __redirectpath and __redirectparams or __redirectrql and __redirectvid.