Presented at JoomlaDay Chicago 2019 Of all the features introduced throughout Joomla 3, subforms is the one I rely on most.  Subforms are a field type like text, dropdowns, and date pickers. Subforms solve important content issues and significantly improve usability in managing content and settings. In this presentation I will provide an introduction to subforms, what they can do, and the flex points where we can customize them within our own projects and extensions.  Then I will demo and discuss the various ways I have deployed subforms across projects.  I’ve come across interesting client needs, and I will illustrate some creative solutions using subforms.  For those of you who are a developer, I will show you how I incorporate subforms into my custom extensions.  If you are not a developer, you will be exposed to the potential of subforms and be able to contact me or another custom developer to solve that challenging content problem.

1. The Joy of Subforms!
• what they are
• the problems they solve
• how you can use them
Randy Carey
Careytech Studios, LLC
Careytech.com

2. Remarkable Features in 3.x
● [3.0] Bootstrap
● [3.1] tags
● [3.2] content versioning
● [3.2] two factor authentication
● [3.3] microdata
● [3.4] frontend module editing
● [3.5] php 7
● [3.6] subforms
● [3.7] custom fields
● [3.7] backend menu manager
● [3.8] new routing system
● [3.9] privacy system
● [3.9] action logging
Of all the major features
of 3.x, the one that I use
the most is subforms.
I build a lot of custom
extensions for clients, and
subforms solves a lot of
challenges.

3. Agenda
• what ARE subforms
• problems solved with subforms
• acknowledging the few challenges
• where/how you can use them
• examples of problems I’ve solved with subforms
• demo: working with subforms

4. What ARE subforms
• A field type (like text, dropdown, date picker, media, etc.)
• A collection of 0-to-multiple records
• the record is a collection of fields of varying types
• almost 100% customizable

5. Joomla field types: https://docs.joomla.org/Standard_form_field_types
An example of the editable
portion of a subform.

6. Customizable set of fields Examples of how each subform can
have its own fieldset.

7. Multiple records A subform can be one record, or it
can hold as many as the user
wants to create.

8. Drag-and-Drop Ordering

9. Interchangable Form Layouts
Here are examples of the three
layouts Joomla provides.
But we can design our own – which is
very helpful for custom data needs

10. problems solved with subforms
Clients often have challenging
needs. Often, subforms play an
important part of the solution.

11. Problems solved: no limit on items
1
2
3
The Articles form has a fixed number of
fields for links. That was before we had
subforms. With Subforms, we could let
users create as many links as they’d
like.

12. Problems solved: easy re-ordering
Also, the user would be able to
drag-and-drop re-order their links.
Reordering the old way required a
lot more work.

13. Problems solved: different orderings
In this scenario, the order of these managers vary upon each product page.
- With the component’s order field, we can not satisfy this requirement.
- With subforms, we can order each without relying on the component’s order.

14. Problems solved: many-to-many
Article
Article
Article
Article
article author
1 22
1 36
2 17
2 22
3 36
4 17
4 36
In the old way, we would
create a separate table
just to manage many-to-
many associations.
Example:
authors-to-articles

15. Problems solved: many-to-many
Article
Article
Article
Article
With subforms…
many-to-many does not
require an extra db table, and
managing these association is
easy for users.

16. Problems solved: reusable fieldsets
If a set of fields are commonly used
together, we can quickly reuse that set
of fields by referencing the same XML
file.
In this example, the fieldset is for a
background image with text.

17. Problems solved: extensible
– embracing change!
– custom fields
We must “embrace change” –
because new requirements often
emerge.
Adding a field is as simple as
adding a field declaration to the
XML file. In contrast, adding a
new field to a component
requires changes to the db and
multiple parts of the MVC.
Here is a suggestion:
If a third-party component
provides an empty subform field,
any user can safely add extra
fields to that component by
adding them to the subform’s
XML file.

18. Problems solved: custom form
Here is an example in which I built the edit form
for a client who has special pricing charts.
This custom layout logically mimics the client’s
mental model of his data.

19. Values of subforms
• custom set of fields
• multiple records
• sortable records
• variable # of records
• multiple orderings
• many-to-many
• extensible – custom fields
• tailored/custom forms

20. challenges
• Some light coding required
• Edit the XML file to declare the fieldset.
• Edit the layout file for displaying this data
– the same skill used in layout overrides

21. challenges
• Some light coding required
• not easy to add to a third-party extension
There are a few tricks.
• The extension may allow you to add an
extra field, and if so, add a subform.
• Create a new menu item type off the
component’s view. Add a subform as a
parameter to that menu item.

22. challenges
• Some light coding required
• not always easy to add to a third-party extension
• Searching on values
• Entire subform is stored as a single JSON
string, so an SQL query must use %LIKE%
and be thought through carefully.

23. Where / How you can use them

24. Where / How you can use them
Component
• As a custom field with a plugin for subforms
• https://www.richeyweb.com/software/joomla/plugins/147-fields-subform
• eShop : as an extra field (other extensions may offer this)
• Create a new menu item type for component, add a subform as a
parameter.
• Component-Creator: create your own component that you can edit
• Outsource – find a skilled Joomla developer

25. Where / How you can use them
Modules & Plugins
• Create your own
• Clone an existing one, modify the XML file (to include a subform)
• Outsource

26. Examples: problems solved with subforms
In this part of the presentation I demoed some
examples from real projects .

27. Examples:
problems solved with subforms
Each alternating block is a record within the
subform.
• Each block has its own settings using a
common fieldset (image, background color,
text, etc.)
• User can create as many as he/she likes.
• User can drag-n-drop order blocks.

28. Examples:
problems solved with subforms
A vendor of biological supplies wanted an
online catalog with the ability to customize a
grid of prices (per piece, per class size, per
volume, whatever based upon the item). The
grid needs to accommodate a variable
number of rows and columns.
Each pricing grid on an item is a subform.

29. Examples:
problems solved with subforms
Many diverse examples could be shown –
both, as to how they help a user manage
content, and as to how they are displayed on
the frontend.

30. The Joy of Subforms!
• what they are
• the problems they solve
• how you can use them
Randy Carey
Careytech Studios, LLC
Careytech.com