Defining repeated fields in oTree Studio

[Peter Cock]

Hello all,

Is it possible to follow this example within oTree Studio?

https://otree.readthedocs.io/en/latest/misc/tips_and_tricks.html#how-to-make-many-fields

i.e. I want to end up with something like this in the app's __init__.py file:

def make_field(label):

    return models.IntegerField(

        choices=[1,2,3,4,5],

        label=label,

        widget=widgets.RadioSelect,

    )

class Player(BasePlayer):

    q1 = make_field('I am quick to understand things.')

    q2 = make_field('I use difficult words.')

    q3 = make_field('I am full of ideas.')

    q4 = make_field('I have excellent ideas.')

I can't see how to do this from the "Models >  Player" page in oTree Studio.

Thank you,

Peter

P.S. I was actually looking for a built in field defined as an array (of booleans, or integers, etc) rather that just a single value - but presume this is not commonly needed in oTree.

[Peter Cock]

I can get most of the functionality I want under oTree "Lite" (v5.2.8) with this simple approach:

class Player(BasePlayer):

    example1 = models.BooleanField(label='1')

    example2 = models.BooleanField(label='2')

    example3 = models.BooleanField(label='3')

    example4 = models.BooleanField(label='4')

    example5 = models.BooleanField(label='5')

And then rather than handling the display settings with repetitive optional arguments when defining the field, I can do that in the HTML template based on the example here:

https://otree.readthedocs.io/en/latest/forms.html?highlight=formfield#example-radio-buttons-in-tables-and-other-custom-layouts

However, while that above works, if the user misses a field, there is an error. The devserver debug information suggests fixing by adding:

{% formfield_errors "example1" %}

{% formfield_errors "example2" %}

...

{% formfield_errors "example5" %}

Another aside, the hint could use the now recommended {{ formfield "example1" }} style over the older {% ... %} style.

Can we nest templates to put that inside the for loop? That would put the error next to the field which would be ideal. I found this does not work:

{% formfield_errors {{ field }} %}

Or, does oTree Lite need an all fields version of formfield_errors (like formfields_errors) to match formfield and formfields (plural)? Or could these default to all fields if no qualifier is given?

Thanks,

Peter

[Chris @ oTree]

On Monday, August 9, 2021 at 8:51:41 AM UTC-6 p.j.a...@googlemail.com wrote:

I can get most of the functionality I want under oTree "Lite" (v5.2.8) with this simple approach:

class Player(BasePlayer):

    example1 = models.BooleanField(label='1')

    example2 = models.BooleanField(label='2')

    example3 = models.BooleanField(label='3')

    example4 = models.BooleanField(label='4')

    example5 = models.BooleanField(label='5')

And then rather than handling the display settings with repetitive optional arguments when defining the field, I can do that in the HTML template based on the example here:

https://otree.readthedocs.io/en/latest/forms.html?highlight=formfield#example-radio-buttons-in-tables-and-other-custom-layouts

However, while that above works, if the user misses a field, there is an error.

Make the field optional with blank=True. See the multi_select app here: https://www.otreehub.com/projects/otree-snippets/

 

The devserver debug information suggests fixing by adding:

{% formfield_errors "example1" %}

{% formfield_errors "example2" %}

...

{% formfield_errors "example5" %}

Another aside, the hint could use the now recommended {{ formfield "example1" }} style over the older {% ... %} style.

Can we nest templates to put that inside the for loop? That would put the error next to the field which would be ideal. I found this does not work:

{% formfield_errors {{ field }} %}

{{ formfield_errors field }}

[Peter Cock]

I found {{ formfield field }} works - which can be very elegant, and {{ formfield_errors field }} would be great - but it seems to fail:

otree.templating.errors.TemplateRenderingError: Error while rendering the PRINT tag: TypeError: argument must be a string (line 17, in "formfield_errors")

Is that an oversight?

Peter

[Chris @ oTree]

Ok I will check that. 

Sent from my phone

On Aug 9, 2021, at 10:04 AM, 'Peter Cock' via oTree help & discussion <ot...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

I found {{ formfield field }} works - which can be very elegant, and {{ formfield_errors field }} would be great - but it seems to fail:

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[Chris @ oTree]

Works fine for me.

class MyPage(Page):

    form_model = 'player'

    form_fields = ['a']

    @staticmethod

    def vars_for_template(player: Player):

        return dict(field='a')

then in template:

{{ formfield_errors field }}

[Peter Cock]

I'm sure I replied to this last night, but evidently not. Apologies if that message shows up later.

Chris' snippet was going in a different direction - but I solved the error display problem with a little lucky and experimentation. A simplified example:

<table class="table">

    {{ for field in form }}

        <tr>

            <th>#{{ field.label }}</th>

            <td>

                <p>

                {{ for choice in field }}

                    {{ choice }}<br />

                {{ endfor }}

                </p>

                {{ formfield_errors field.name }}

            </td>

        </tr>

    {{ endfor }}

</table>

What I had been missing was given a loop variable field, I could use field.name to get the field's name as a string suitable for {{ formfield field.name }} or {{ formfield_errors field.name }}, which is reasonably concise.

Working example here:

https://github.com/peterjc/MDT-INTR-EXP-MET/commit/661a4bff52f8332fce48e68dd4f73d7768710ebe

However, on testing it became clear that bypassing the default control rendering misses out on data entry validation. These tradeoffs are hinted at in the documentation:

https://otree.readthedocs.io/en/latest/forms.html#customizing-a-field-s-appearance

So, in the end I have gone for the default control rendering using {{ formfield ... }} which is concise, but apparently requires verbose repetitive field definition in oTree Studio (as per my original query). Now clicking on "next" scrolls to the first unanswered field. Changes here:

https://github.com/peterjc/MDT-INTR-EXP-MET/commit/768e2f7c3da53c0008b24f32d1d35850478ccfde

I remain puzzled as too why I can use either {{ formfield field }} or {{ formfield field.name }} but only {{ formfield_errors field.name }} and not {{ formfield_errors field }} (which gives a TypeError):

https://github.com/peterjc/MDT-INTR-EXP-MET/commit/2b17f1c99f7fa3a90ed88e39ae7b1fa4d23f2d25

Regards,

Peter