I couldn't find any reference on how to use a parent form element in a subclassed form. May be because it's obvious to everyone but me. It's got me stumped. This is what I tried.

At first, within my form constructor I called

```
parent::__construct($options = null);

```

then accessed the parent elements like this

```
$type = parent::setName($this->type);

```

The problem was that ALL the parent form elements would display whether explicitly called or not. Someone said, "don't use \_\_construct(), use the init() function instead. So I changed the constructor to init(), commented out the parent constructor, then ran the form. It bombed saying it couldn't pass an empty value for setName(). I commented out all the seName() calls and the form ran, but only displayed the elements instantiated in the subclassed form.

My question is this: If I don't use the parent constructor, how do i get and use the parent's form elements?

Solved: Since the constructor was switched to init, the call to the parent also needed to be switched. Easy for someone with php background. Not so much for one who doesn't.

Use

```
parent::init();

```