ChoiceField with "Other, please specify" option

[elvismdev]

I need to create a form field with a set of choices with an extra text input which needs to be filled out if you choose the "Other, please specify" option:

Preferred communication method:
(*) Private messaging (WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram) 
( ) Email
( ) Other, please specify: [             ]

How can I accomplish this on EasyAdmin 3?

[a-r-m-i-n]

I think the easiest way is to provide an own FormType, which extends from ChoiceType, but allows additional values. And you need to extend the form widget template.

[elvismdev]

@a-r-m-i-n Thanks for you input. So, inspired by this answer in SO, this is a working solution that I have accomplished so far:

Here my code:

CRUD Controller

// src/Controller/Admin/ServiceRequestCrudController.php
namespace App\Controller\Admin;

use App\Entity\ServiceRequest;
use App\Form\PreferredCommunicationMethodType;
use EasyCorp\Bundle\EasyAdminBundle\Controller\AbstractCrudController;
use EasyCorp\Bundle\EasyAdminBundle\Field\Field;

class ServiceRequestCrudController extends AbstractCrudController
{
    public static function getEntityFqcn(): string
    {
        return ServiceRequest::class;
    }

    public function configureFields(string $pageName): iterable
    {
        return [
            // ...

            Field::new('preferredCommunicationMethod')
                ->setFormType(PreferredCommunicationMethodType::class)
                ->onlyOnForms(),

            // ...
        ];
    }

    // ...
}

Custom Form Type

// src/Form/PreferredCommunicationMethodType.php
namespace App\Form;

use App\Form\DataTransformer\ChoiceWithOtherTransformer;
use Symfony\Component\Form\AbstractType;
use Symfony\Component\Form\FormBuilderInterface;
use Symfony\Component\OptionsResolver\OptionsResolver;
use Symfony\Component\Form\Extension\Core\Type\ChoiceType;
use Symfony\Component\Form\Extension\Core\Type\TextType;

class PreferredCommunicationMethodType extends AbstractType
{

    /**
     * @var array
     */
    private $choiceOptions = [
        'Private messaging (WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram)' => 'private_messaging',
        'Email' => 'email',
        'Other' => 'other',
    ];

    public function buildForm(FormBuilderInterface $builder, array $options)
    {
        $builder
            ->add(
                'choice',
                ChoiceType::class,
                [
                    'choices' => $this->choiceOptions,
                ]
            )
            ->add('other', TextType::class);

        $builder->addModelTransformer(
            new ChoiceWithOtherTransformer($this->choiceOptions)
        );
    }

    public function configureOptions(OptionsResolver $resolver)
    {
        $resolver->setDefaults(
            [
                // Configure your form options here
            ]
        );
    }
}

Data Transformer

// src/Form/DataTransformer/ChoiceWithOtherTransformer.php
namespace App\Form\DataTransformer;

use Symfony\Component\Form\DataTransformerInterface;

class ChoiceWithOtherTransformer implements DataTransformerInterface
{

    /**
     * @var array
     */
    private $choiceOptions;

    public function __construct(array $choiceOptions)
    {
        $this->choiceOptions = $choiceOptions;
    }

    public function transform($value)
    {
        if (null === $value) {
            return $value;
        }

        if (in_array($value, $this->choiceOptions)) {
            $value = [
                'choice' => $value,
                'other' => '',
            ];
        } else {
            $value = [
                'choice' => 'other',
                'other' => $value,
            ];
        }

        return $value;
    }

    public function reverseTransform($value)
    {
        if (isset($value['choice']) && $value['choice'] === 'other') {
            return $value['other'];
        }

        return $value['choice'];
    }
}

This does the job as I needed, but, what I'm not "liking", is that I'm defining the choice options inside my custom form type as you can see (in PreferredCommunicationMethodType.php).

Since I have other entity fields that would use this same choice with other field type approach, I feel I would like to make this more generic / decoupled, having my custom form type called ChoiceWithOtherType.php and have the options for the choice field to be defined in the CRUD controller and passed into ChoiceWithOtherType from there. e.g.

Field::new('preferredCommunicationMethod')
                ->setFormType(ChoiceWithOtherType::class)
                ->setOptions(
                    [
                        'Private messaging (WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram)' => 'private_messaging',
                        'Email' => 'email',
                        'Other' => 'other',
                    ]
                 )
                ->onlyOnForms()

At the same time, need to be able to pass these same options from ChoiceWithOtherType to ChoiceWithOtherTransformer to do the checks I'm doing in it's transform() method.

Could you advice what I might be missing, or doing wrong, in order to have this final solution as a more generic custom field type that I can re-use for other similar fields invoked from my CRUD controller?

Highly appreciated!

[javiereguiluz]

This is how I'd solve this, if you store this communication method in two different entity properties:

// ...
yield FormField::addPanel('Preferred Communication Method')
      ->setHelp('Choose one of the predefined method or type your own custom method');
yield ChoiceField::new('firstProperty')->setChoices('Private Messaging' => '...', 'Email' => '...')->setColumns(6);
yield TextField::new('secondProperty')->setColumns(6);

And then, in the entity, I'd validate that both methods are never selected:

class SomeEntity
{
    // ...

    #[Assert\Callback]
    public function validate(ExecutionContextInterface $context, $payload): void
    {
        if (null !== $this->firstProperty && null !== $this->secondProperty) {
            $context->buildViolation('Communication method must be either a built-in one or a custom one, but not both. Unset one of them.')
                ->addViolation();
        }
    }
}

---

If you are using a single entity property, then use an unmapped/virtual entity for the choice field:

// ...
yield FormField::addPanel('Preferred Communication Method')
      ->setHelp('Choose one of the predefined method or type your own custom method');
// this 'predefinedCommunicationMethod' property doesn't exist in the entity
yield ChoiceField::new('predefinedCommunicationMethod')->setChoices('Private Messaging' => '...', 'Email' => '...')->setColumns(6);
// this 'communicationMethod' property exists in the entity
yield TextField::new('communicationMethod')->setColumns(6);

And then, use one of the CRUD controller methods to update the value of the property (e.g. in persistEntity()).

---

Finally, my preferred solution would be this, which uses the "native HTML combobox" feature (see https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/input.html#concept-input-list):

class SomeEntityCrudController extends AbstractCrudController
{
    // ...

    public function configureFields(string $pageName): iterable
    {
        // ...
        yield TextField::new('communicationMethod')
            ->addHtmlContentsToBody(<<<HTML
                <datalist id="built-in-communication-methods">
                  <option value="private_messaging">Private Messaging</option>
                  <option value="email">Email</option>
                </datalist>
            HTML
            )->setFormTypeOption('list', 'built-in-communication-methods');
    }
}

[javiereguiluz]

I'm closing this because several possible solutions were given. Thanks!

[elvismdev]

Gracias @javiereguiluz ! I finally decided to go with your first mentioned option. I might be overcomplicating too much myself and possibly introduce later conflicts trying to make it happen with a single custom field type for a single entity property.