.error-message {color: red;}

var $validate = array(
    	'username'=>array(
    		'rule'=>'alphaNumeric',
			'required'=>true,
    		'message'=>'Please enter the username',
    	)
	);

<h2>Add User</h2>
<?php echo $form->create('User', array('url' => '/users/add'));?>
<?php echo $form->input('username', array('size' => '20','label'=>'User Name:'));?>
<?php
echo '<div><input type="submit" value="Submit" /> or '.$html->link('Cancel', array('action' => 'index')).'</div>';
echo $form->end();
?>
<code>
<h2>Add User</h2>
<?php echo $form->create('User', array('url' => '/users/add'));?>
<?php echo $form->input('username', array('size' => '20','label'=>'User Name:'));?>
<?php
echo '<div><input type="submit" value="Submit" /> or '.$html->link('Cancel', array('action' => 'index')).'</div>';
echo $form->end();
?>

<form method="post" action="/AuthUsers/users/add">
<fieldset style="display:none;">
<input type="hidden" name="_method" value="POST" />
</fieldset>
<div class="input text required error">
<label for="UserUsername">User Name:</label>
<input name="data[User][username]" type="text" size="20" maxlength="20" value="" id="UserUsername" class="form-error" />
<div class="error-message">Please enter the username</div>
</div>
<div>
<input type="submit" value="Submit" /> or <a href="/AuthUsers/users">Cancel</a>
</div>
</form>

Anny clue as to how i can have the error message displayed in red color but the label in black color?
Krishna

Anyway, good luck on your journey :)

re: post back – I wrote out a whole comment, about as long as the last one, but when I submitted, I forgot the mand. fields. I got a message saying to fill the mand. fields, but the message just stayed there (it was the only thing on the screen) and I wasn’t redirected back to my post. I clicked back button and my writing was gone and I had to re-write.

Thanks again for your responses and your blog. It’s an excellent resource for someone like me who’s beginning what seems to be a long journey in php programming, and the cake framework.

Regarding configuration model, I would probably create a model for each configuration table, and then have a special configurations controller. But at first I would ask myself whether this additional complexity is really necessary and worth the effort.

What do you mean with “post back method”?

Is there a suggested naming conventions for fields that have acronyms (the system uses a lot of techish fields (IP, DLCI, TCP, etc) but I’d like to not have to override all the names. perhaps theres a built in alias function in cake?

I’m trying to get away from building static views. I’d like to be able to build the form according to the db schema, possibly with a few alterations (order of the fields). On that note, do you have any ideas of a configuration model to have a bunch of user configuration tables to control things like :
- drop downs (what fields to use them on, what options to allow, and the order of the options)
- fields to include in reports, forms, tables, etc. (what fields to omit in forms, or reports, but still include in a different table)

if this doesn’t make sense, it may be a result of me having to write it again since i didn’t include my name and email in the original post (p.s. you should have some sorta post back method).

i built a web app that i’m now trying to migrate into the cake framework but a combo of me being a bit of a noob (only a year of self taught programming) and the spotty documentation is making it tougher than i first anticipated. any help you can offer would be swell.

I think you could write your own helper which extends the FormHelper, and then override the label() method. But it is a bit an ugly solution. It is probably easier if you provide an explicit value for the label with:

$form->input('MyModel.DLCI1', array('label' => 'DLCI1'));

Hope that helps!

do you know if theres a way to override cakes method of splitting up field names at the case? I.e. I have a set of field names DLCI[1-7]. When the $form->input helper does its thing, it makes the label D L C I1 and so on…