This package provides two classes for the Django framework which allow for the generation of sentence-based forms. For examples of this type of form, see the California Energy Efficiency Program Data map at the OpenEMV website.

This package comes with a built-in buildout and demo project and app. To test out the whole thing, simply clone the repo to your local machine:

git clone [email protected]:cewing/cpe.clauseselect.git ./clauseselect

Then, you can run the buildout to get everything ready:

cd clauseselect
/usr/bin/python bootstrap.py
bin/buildout

When buildout completes, you'll have a ready-to-go demo site all set up. Simply run syncdb to get started:

bin/django syncdb

You'll need to add an admin user at the prompt. Once the db is synced, you can start the django development server:

bin/django runserver

Surf to http://localhost:8000/admin to log in and start by adding a few vehicles. Once you've added a dozen or so, go ahead and check out the listing view at http://localhost:8000/cars/list

The sentence form presents you with a simple sentence which initially displays the selected value for any required fields in your form. In the demo app, the only required field is 'vehicle_type', so when you first load the form, that's the only choice you get. In addition, the form shows a 'refine further' link at the end of the sentence. If you click on this link, you'll open up a drawer containing additional, optional fields. Click on a field to see a list of the available selections for that field. When you select something other than the default for that field, the field will be shown in the sentence after submitting. If you return to the default value, then the field will disappear from the sentence and return to the 'refine further' drawer on submitting.

The javascript functionality of the form is dependent on the jQuery Tools package. You'll need to include that in any pages on which a SentenceForm is built. You can see how it's done by looking at the test_form.html template in the demo app from this package. It's based on the tooltip functionality from that package, so at the least you need to have that present in whatever subset of the full toolset you choose to use.

This package would not be possible without a few folks, here's a quick list:

• The OpenEMV Team, who provided the original impetus to develop the tool
• The outstanding UI folks at Fog Creek Software, whose filter interface for the outstanding issue tracking system FogBugz was the inspiration for this project. This is but a pale imitation of the original.