Yii2 create a form without a model

Question

I was wondering how can I create a form without a model in Yii2 framework as I am creating a mailchimp signup form so a model isn't necessary the below code generates a form however as you can see it uses a model.

<?php $form = ActiveForm::begin(['id' => 'login-form']); ?>

<?= $form->field($model, 'title')->textInput(['maxlength' => 255]) ?>

<?php ActiveForm::end(); ?>

Do I still use activeform, how can I remove the $model variable without it throwing up an error?

Answer 1

Yii2 has this nice little thingy called a DynamicModel. This basically allows you to create a model on the fly so that you can still use all the ActiveForm and validation goodies, but without having to commit to writing an entire model class for it. Might be interesting.

Example from the documentation:

public function actionSearch($name, $email)
{
   $model = DynamicModel::validateData(compact('name', 'email'), [
       [['name', 'email'], 'string', 'max' => 128],
       ['email', 'email'],
   ]);
   if ($model->hasErrors()) {
      // validation fails
   } else {
      // validation succeeds
   }
}

Obviously these instance can also be used for the ActiveForm-widget. You can then run proper validation in your actions first and then pass on your data to MailChimp. Might be handy if you want to run HTML Purifier as part of that validation for the content

Answer 2

use Html Input with active form <?=Html::input('text','','',['class'=>'form-control'])?>

Answer 3

As @DamienPirsy suggested - use plain. If you want use yii2 features for it - use Class yii\helpers\BaseHtml (http://www.yiiframework.com/doc-2.0/yii-helpers-basehtml.html) There are all methods to build any form as you want. Then you can operate it in any action in any controller of your application. But this is not true MVC way. That's why Yii/Yii2 advises you to use models.