Cakephp forms - Is there a way to make a field read only (in the view) - cakephp

Question

I have a Cakephp 1.3 form that allows users to edit the profile data. But some of the information in the forms needs to be read only (sometimes).
Is my only option to echo and format the field contents in the read only case or is there a flag in the Cake form that allows for read only fields. Ideally the read only fields would be greyed out similar to other interfaces.
echo $this->Form->create('User', array('url' => array('controller' => 'User', 'action'=>'editUser')));
echo $this->Form->input('id', array('type'=>'hidden'));
If (!isset($IsAdmin)) {
// Only display username - read only! Add code here
echo $this->Form->input('username', array('label' => __d('users', 'User',true)));
} else {
// Admins can edit user names
echo $this->Form->input('username', array('label' => __d('users', 'User',true)));
}
... more fields here
echo $this->Form->end(__d('users', 'Submit',true));

Answer 1

You can add a 'disabled' key to the options array, however realise that this is only the front-end/presentation of the form, people will be able to override the 'disabled' property of the input field and modify its value.
To prevent unwanted changes to be saved, you need to specify a 'fieldList' when saving the data using your model
To output a disabled form field;
echo $this->Form->input('fieldname', array('type'=>'hidden', 'disabled' => 'disabled'));
Then, when saving the data, specify a fieldlist (documentation: http://book.cakephp.org/1.3/en/The-Manual/Developing-with-CakePHP/Models.html#saving-your-data)
$this->MyModel->save($this->data, true, array('field1', 'field2'));
The fieldlist should include all fields that are allowed to be updated by the user

Answer 2

The disabled attribute is fine but actually, input fields have a 'readonly' attribute. And it sounds like you want the field to still be shown to the user so using 'hidden' isn't really addressing what you want done.
So an alternative (and actually specifically addressing your requirement for 'read only'):
echo $this->Form->input('fieldname', array('readonly' => 'readonly'));
I found that using disabled prevents jquery click triggers from firing versus readonly still fires e.g. using a bootstrap datepicker text field
Here's a link to WC3 for it: http://www.w3schools.com/tags/att_input_readonly.asp

Answer 3

if you really want to make a field read only why you want to use form field, just echo the value, one can easily change disable or readonly attribute of form field with simple javascript or firebug.

Answer 4

Okay, after having tried several approaches, here is what I like.
1) Use readonly (disabled will remove the value after hitting "save", when you are in update mode, which sucks):
echo $this->Form->input('email', array('readonly' => 'readonly'));
2) To prevent this from updating when removing 'readonly' via browser plugins, you can add this to beforeSave of your model:
if(isset($this->data[$this->alias]['id'])) // id is only set if we update
{
unset($this->data[$this->alias]['email']);
}
Field lists are not comfortable. Why should I add all the fields, when I actually only want to exclude one?
Unsetting will prevent CakePHP from updating it in the database. Of course, after hitting save with an (invalidly) updated e-mail address, this update will be shown in the form once. But as the user has manipulated the HTML form and since the database field stays unchanged, this should not matter.

Answer 5

You can do either of two things:
Make the field hidden
(Ex. echo $this->Form->input ('username, array ('type' => 'hidden'));
Reset the value of username to it's original value, before submitting the form or possibly in beforeSave.