Compound fields in forms

Many Perl form packages require nested forms of some sort for compound fields, but there are problems with that model. A form class--whether constructed from config settings in a file or declared in a Perl class--has lots of other attributes besides the fields. It made more sense to me to have a form with nested fields, where the fields can form a tree. That way attributes of the form do not have to be repeated in sub-forms. It also allows declaring subfields in the containing form, if that's what makes sense for this particular case. Here's an example of how to do a form with a nested field in HTML::FormHandler:

   package MyApp::Form;
   use HTML::FormHandler::Moose;
   extends 'HTML::FormHandler';

   has_field 'address' => ( type => 'Compound' );
   has_field 'address.street';
   has_field 'address.city';
   has_field 'address.zip' => ( type => '+Zip' );
   1;

The subfields are indicated by prefacing the field name with the name of the compound field and a dot. This form class will create a form with an 'address' field that contains an array of fields.
You can achieve the same thing by creating an 'Address' field:

   package MyApp::Field::Address;
   use HTML::FormHandler::Moose;
   extends 'HTML::FormHandler::Field::Compound';

   has_field => 'street';
   has_field => 'city';
   has_field => 'zip' => ( type => '+Zip' );
   1;

(Where '+Zip' is a field class that you have written...) Then this field can be used in a form by simply doing:

   has_field 'addresss' => ( type => '+Address' );

This feels simple and straightforward and, for me at least, matches my conceptual model of a form better than nested forms.

HTML::FormHandler

When I started on a Catalyst project a year and a half ago I picked Form::Processor for form handling. I liked the architecture and I liked having the form in a Perl class so that I could do more-or-less anything that I wanted to with it. But then there was Moose, and I didn't want to have to switch back and forth between object systems. Plus you can do lots of shiny things with Moose. It's like a big Christmas present with lots of little parts that you can play with for ages...

So I converted Form::Processor to Moose. But it was tough to maintain back compatibility and still use all that Moose-y goodness. In the end it seemed rational to start fresh with a new project: HTML::FormHandler. It has many excellent features, such as being able to define the fields declaratively, and there are plans for many more. Moose continues to be a pleasure to work with. It makes features easy that would have been horrendously difficult without it. Of course, Reaction does wonderful things with Moose too, and is in many ways a more complete solution. But I think that HTML::FormHandler can still fill a niche. This is Perl after all--there has to be more than one way to do things.