Multistep form makes same submissions

Question

I created a Ctools Multistep form. Its working fine. But when a user opens this multistep form in two tabs and fill the form fields simultaneously and submits it, both the submitted forms have same values for all the fields. Means both the submissions have same data.

When I have submitted this form in different browsers simultaneously, then both submissions have their own data.

I followed this tutorial to make Ctools Multistep form : http://www.xenyomedia.com/content/4-steps-form-multistep-form-ctools

I think, the problem is with $object_id = 'ctools_multistep';, because its same for both the forms in different tabs. Thats why it creates the same submissions for both forms.

Can anyone help me regarding this?

Answer 1

You have picked up correctly, the root cause for this issue is the object_id used by ctools multistep form, which is being generated per session. And for different tabs in a browser, we have the same session. So basically we need to figure out a way to get different object_id for each tab. This can be done in two ways: 1. Modify session mechanism to have a different session per tab. (Difficult) 2. Use query_parameters to handle two different requests. (For eg: time as id)

So, using 2nd way to solve our the problem: Get object_id dynamically.

$object_id = _module_get_object_id();

Ensure if id exists in URL, else return newly generated id.

function _module_get_object_id() {
  $params = drupal_get_query_parameters();
  if (isset($params['id'])) {
    return $params['id'];
  }
  else {
    $params['id'] = time();
    return $params['id'];
  }
}

and most important step, for adding id in URL as query parameter we need to add following code in the ctools_multistep_wizard_next function:

drupal_goto($form_state['redirect'][0], array('query' => array('id' => $form_state['object_id'])));

Reference: http://savaslabs.com/2015/06/23/implementing-ctools-multi-step-form-block.html