Forms Editor

Forms are where users touch your data. Pytigon's Forms Editor lets you design form layouts visually, generating either FastForm definitions or full .ihtml templates depending on the complexity you need.

Two Approaches to Forms

FastForm — The Quick Path

For simple CRUD forms, Pytigon offers FastForm — a string-based form definition language. Instead of writing Django form classes, you describe your form as a readable text format:

What is this?
Name
Second name::*
name//Title!::*
Description::_
Date::####.##.##
Quantity::0
Choose::[option1;option2
option3]
Age::000

Each line becomes a Django form field:

Line Pattern Field Type Example
Plain text CharField Name
::* suffix Required CharField Second name::*
name//title Custom field name name//Title!::*
::_ suffix TextField Description::_
####.##.## DateField Date::####.##.##
0 (single digit) IntegerField Quantity::0
9.99 FloatField Amount!::9.99
[options] ChoiceField Choose::[a;b;c]
000 (multi-digit) IntegerField with limit Age::000
**** Masked CharField Code::****

Rules for automatic field name generation (when // is not used): - Convert label to lowercase - Remove spaces and non-alphanumeric characters - Truncate to 16 characters

Custom Templates — The Flexible Path

When FastForm isn't enough, you design the form directly as an .ihtml template. This gives you:

  • Custom layouts (multi-column, grouped sections)
  • Conditional field visibility
  • Dynamic field choices (comboselect)
  • Inline related forms (editing child records within parent)
  • Custom validation logic
  • JavaScript-enhanced interactions

Form Layout Components

The Forms Editor lets you arrange fields using these layout building blocks:

inline_form

Renders all form fields sequentially in a single column:

[inline_form]

Two-Column Row

[row]

Comboselect — Cascading Dropdowns

Chain select fields where each choice depends on the previous selection:

[comboselect "country" label="Country" data_rel_name="city" src=""]
[[[comboselect "city" label="City" src="/api/cities?country=[[country]]"]]]

The field_name syntax in the src URL is dynamically replaced with the current value of the referenced field.

Grouped Fields

div class=card
    div class=card-header...Personal Information
    div class=card-body
[field "first_name"]
[field "last_name"]
[field "birth_date"]

Form Actions

Define submit buttons and their behavior:

[form_actions]

Integration with Models

Forms defined in the Forms Editor integrate with the model layer through:

  • get_form_source() — Model method returning FastForm string definition
  • get_form_class() — Model method returning a dynamically generated Django Form class
  • is_form_valid() — Static model method for custom validation
  • post_form() — Model method hook called after form submission

This allows per-record form customization — different records of the same type can use different form configurations based on their state or type.

?: FormsEditor ?: FormsEditor