All field keywords beginning with html_form_ are passed directly into the form hash. Thus, they are really defined in form.tt which ships with Gantry.
html_form_
html_form_type specifies the input element type of the field. You need a type if the field will appear on any form, but not if it won't. The form.tt template understands these types:
html_form_type
text textarea select display
Some of the commands apply to specific types:
text: html_form_display_size
textarea: html_form_rows and html_form_cols
select: html_form_options (required unless the field is a foreign key)
display: html_form_foreign
See those related statements for type examples.
NOTE: that the html_form_type is not related to the SQL type, which is controlled by the is keyword.
is
To see an example, build:
bigtop -c example.bigtop all
Change to the newly created Kids directory and look in the form method in lib/Kids/GEN/Child.pm.
To install Bigtop, copy and paste the appropriate command in to your terminal.
cpanm
cpanm Bigtop
CPAN shell
perl -MCPAN -e shell install Bigtop
For more information on module installation, please visit the detailed CPAN module installation guide.