Using performAjaxValidation inside a widget (Yii) - ajax

Question

I've created a widget with a CActiveForm in it. Everything works ok, but now i want to enable ajax validation for it.
The problem is that the output of my ajax validation is containing, besides the validation JSON string, all (well a part of it, since Yii::app()->end() stops the rest) of my html as well. Not weird, because i'm using it within a widget and the validation request is done to the controller/action where i've placed this widget on.
Is there some way to prevent outputting all the html, so a valid JSON string is returned?
I've already tried to set the validationUrl in the CActiveForm to another controller/action, but the problem is that i have to send the model with it and this model is determined in my widget and not on the validationUrl.
Widget:
public function run()
{
$model = new User;
$model->scenario = 'create';
$this->performAjaxValidation($model);
if (isset($_POST['User'])) {
$model->attributes = $_POST['User'];
if ($model->save()) {
}
}
$this->render('register-form', array(
'model' => $model
));
}
/**
* Performs the AJAX validation.
* #param User $model the model to be validated
*/
protected function performAjaxValidation($model)
{
if(isset($_POST['ajax']))
{
echo CActiveForm::validate($model);
Yii::app()->end();
}
}
Output of performAjaxValidation() (the ajax call):
.. more html here ..
<section class="box">
<h1>Register form simple</h1>
{"UserPartialSignup_email":["Email is geen geldig emailadres."]}

Answer 1

I solved it this way:
I've created an AJAX controller where the validation is done:
AjaxController:
/**
* Validates a model.
*
* Validates a model, POST containing the data. This method is usually used for widget based forms.
*
* #param $m model name which have to be validated
* #param $s scenario for this model, optional.
* #return string JSON containing the validation data
*/
public function actionValidate($m, $s = null)
{
if ($this->checkValidationData($m, $s) && isset($_POST['ajax']))
{
$model = new $m;
$model->scenario = $s;
echo CActiveForm::validate($model);
Yii::app()->end();
} else {
throw new CHttpException(500, 'No valid validation combination used');
}
}
You can give the model name and a scenario as GET parameters with it, i'm checking if this combination is allowed by the checkValidationData() method.
In the view of my widget where the CActiveForm is placed, i've added the validationUrl, referring to ajax/validate:
widgets/views/registerform.php:
<?php $form = $this->beginWidget('CActiveForm', array(
'id'=>'signup-form-advanced',
'enableAjaxValidation'=>true,
'clientOptions' => array(
'validationUrl' => array('ajax/validate', 'm' => get_class($model), 's' => 'create')
)
//'enableClientValidation'=>true,
)); ?>