Right way to create butons in uiComponent form in Magento 2

Question

I've created an uiComponent form but there is no save button. In every form coponent example there is no save buttons and all the examples with save button that I found are FULLY created in Magento 1 way (I mean they are all generated by a php block).

I created a normal button using code below which looks like save one but I can't make him save the form.

    <item name="buttons" xsi:type="array">
        <item name="save" xsi:type="array">
            <item name="name" xsi:type="string">save</item>
            <item name="label" xsi:type="string" translate="true">Save</item>
            <item name="class" xsi:type="string">primary</item>
        </item>
    </item>

If there is no other way to make the savable form as UI Component then what's the point of their partial existance?

Answer 1

You can declare buttons inside the

<argument name="data" xsi:type="array"> tag as this

    <item name="buttons" xsi:type="array">
        <item name="back" xsi:type="string">[Namespace]\[Module]\Block\Adminhtml\Button\Back</item>
        <item name="delete" xsi:type="string">[Namespace]\[Module]\Block\Adminhtml\Button\Delete</item>
        <item name="save" xsi:type="string">[Namespace]\[Module]\Block\Adminhtml\Button\Save</item>
    </item>

You can have additional buttons. As many as you want.
Each class declared inside the 'item' tag must implement the interface Magento\Framework\View\Element\UiComponent\Control\ButtonProviderInterface.
in the method getButtonData you define how the button looks or behaves

For example, for the back button it can look like this:

public function getButtonData()
{
    return [
        'label' => __('Back'),
        'on_click' => sprintf("location.href = '%s';", $this->getBackUrl()),
        'class' => 'back',
        'sort_order' => 10
    ];
}

A more detailed example can be found here

Answer 2

Step-1: Create Generic.php at app/code/VendoreName/ModuleName/Block/Adminhtml/Edit/Button

<?php

namespace VendoreName\ModuleName\Block\Adminhtml\Edit\Button;

use Magento\Backend\Block\Widget\Context;
use Magento\Cms\Api\PageRepositoryInterface;

class Generic
{
    protected $context;
    protected $pageRepository;

    public function __construct(
        Context $context,
        PageRepositoryInterface $pageRepository
    ) {
        $this->context = $context;
        $this->pageRepository = $pageRepository;
    }

    public function getUrl($route = '', $params = [])
    {
        return $this->context->getUrlBuilder()->getUrl($route, $params);
    }
}

Step-2: Create Back.php at app/code/VendoreName/ModuleName/Block/Adminhtml/Edit/Button

<?php

namespace VendoreName\ModuleName\Block\Adminhtml\Edit\Button;

use Magento\Framework\View\Element\UiComponent\Control\ButtonProviderInterface;

class Back extends Generic implements ButtonProviderInterface
{
    public function getButtonData()
    {
        return [
            'label' => __('Back'),
            'on_click' => sprintf("location.href = '%s';", $this->getBackUrl()),
            'class' => 'back',
            'sort_order' => 10,
        ];
    }

    public function getBackUrl()
    {
        return $this->getUrl('*/*/');
    }
}

Step-3: Create Reset.php at app/code/VendoreName/ModuleName/Block/Adminhtml/Edit/Button

<?php

namespace VendoreName\ModuleName\Block\Adminhtml\Edit\Button;

use Magento\Framework\View\Element\UiComponent\Control\ButtonProviderInterface;

class Reset implements ButtonProviderInterface
{
    public function getButtonData()
    {
        return [
            'label' => __('Reset'),
            'class' => 'reset',
            'on_click' => 'location.reload();',
            'sort_order' => 30,
        ];
    }
}

Step-4: Create Delete.php at app/code/VendoreName/ModuleName/Block/Adminhtml/Edit/Buttons

<?php

namespace VendoreName\ModuleName\Block\Adminhtml\Edit\Button;

use Magento\Backend\Block\Widget\Context;
use Magento\Framework\View\Element\UiComponent\Control\ButtonProviderInterface;

class Delete extends Generic implements ButtonProviderInterface
{
    protected $context;

    public function __construct(
        Context $context
    ) {
        $this->context = $context;
    }

    public function getButtonData()
    {
        $data = [];
        $id = $this->context->getRequest()->getParam('id');
        if ($id) {
            $data = [
                'label' => __('Delete'),
                'class' => 'delete',
                'on_click' => 'deleteConfirm(\'' . __(
                    'Are you sure you want to delete this?'
                ) . '\', \'' . $this->getDeleteUrl() . '\')',
                'sort_order' => 20,
            ];
        }
        return $data;
    }

    public function getDeleteUrl()
    {
        $id = $this->context->getRequest()->getParam('id');
        return $this->getUrl('*/*/delete', ['id' => $id]);
    }
}

Step-5: Create Save.php at app/code/VendoreName/ModuleName/Block/Adminhtml/Edit/Button

<?php

namespace VendoreName\ModuleName\Block\Adminhtml\Edit\Button;

use Magento\Framework\View\Element\UiComponent\Control\ButtonProviderInterface;
use Magento\Ui\Component\Control\Container;

class Save extends Generic implements ButtonProviderInterface
{
    public function getButtonData()
    {
        return [
            'label' => __('Save'),
            'class' => 'save primary',
            'data_attribute' => [
                'mage-init' => [
                    'buttonAdapter' => [
                        'actions' => [
                            [
                                'targetName' => 'your_form_ui_component_name.your_form_ui_component_name',
                                'actionName' => 'save',
                                'params' => [
                                    false,
                                ],
                            ],
                        ],
                    ],
                ],
            ],
        ];
    }

}

Step-6: In your Form Ui-Component file at app/code/VendoreName/ModuleName/view/adminhtml/ui_component add below code:

<form xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="urn:magento:module:Magento_Ui:etc/ui_configuration.xsd">
    <argument name="data" xsi:type="array">
        ............................................................................................................
        <item name="buttons" xsi:type="array">
            <item name="back" xsi:type="string">VendoreName\ModuleName\Block\Adminhtml\Edit\Button\Back</item>
            <item name="delete" xsi:type="string">VendoreName\ModuleName\Block\Adminhtml\Edit\Button\Delete</item>
            <item name="reset" xsi:type="string">VendoreName\ModuleName\Block\Adminhtml\Edit\Button\Reset</item>
            <item name="save" xsi:type="string">VendoreName\ModuleName\Block\Adminhtml\Edit\Button\Save</item>
        </item>
        ............................................................................................................
    </argument>
    <dataSource name="your_form_data_source_name">
        <argument name="dataProvider" xsi:type="configurableObject">
            <argument name="class" xsi:type="string">VendoreName\ModuleName\Model\DataProvider</argument>
            <argument name="name" xsi:type="string">your_form_data_source_name</argument>
            <argument name="primaryFieldName" xsi:type="string">id</argument>
            <argument name="requestFieldName" xsi:type="string">id</argument>
            <argument name="data" xsi:type="array">
              <item name="config" xsi:type="array">
                 <item name="submit_url" xsi:type="url" path="*/*/save"/>
              </item>
            </argument>
        </argument>
        <argument name="data" xsi:type="array">
            <item name="js_config" xsi:type="array">
                <item name="component" xsi:type="string">Magento_Ui/js/form/provider</item>
            </item>
        </argument>
    </dataSource>
    ................................................................................................................
</form>

After adding above files run below command:

php bin/magento s:up
php bin/magento c:c