Is there a way to populate checkboxes component (or different component which allows multiple choice) with dynamic values (just like you can do for a dynamic dropdown)? Let's say I want do populate checkboxes with countries. Example form: https://demo.orbeon.com/demo/fr/orbeon/builder/edit/73aeafa983d00f305fb381d72e59ce7c69e2b1ea
Yes, you can do this with Actions & Services:
Use an HTTP services if your data comes from a service that returns JSON or XML.
Use an database service if you prefer to write SQL to extract data from a database.
Use an action to define when your service should be called (e.g. on form load), what data you want to pass to the service (if any), and what to do with the result, which, in your case, it to set the choices of a selection control.
And note that Actions & Services are a PE feature.
Related
I could update and publish existing form definitions in Orbeon:
When you create, edit, or read form definition with Form Builder, form definitions are stored as Form Builder data. That is, they are stored under: /crud/orbeon/builder/data/[FORM_DATA_ID]. On the other hand, when Form Builder publishes a form definition, it stores it where Form Runner will find it, that is under: /crud/[APPLICATION_NAME]/[FORM_NAME]/form. For example, this is what happens when saving and publishing a form definition acme/demo with a single attachment.
However, I don't know how to create a new Form Definition using REST API. Can someone please provide me an example of the REST call for creating a new form definition?
Most likely, the easiest way is to create an empty form in Form Builder, save it, and then retrieve the XML stored in the orbeon_form_data table in the newly added row, in the xml column (assuming you're using a relational database). Then, with that XML in hand, you can write your own code that creates a new row through the CRUD API.
Also, RFE 3080 covers an enhancement that might make this easier for you. It was written with creating new instances of forms you created in Form Builder mind, not new instances of a form definition, but in essence the idea is the same.
Dear SAPUI5 Developers,
I developed a SAPUI5 Fiori Worklist project by using WebIDE template projects.
In the Component.js file the OData model has been fetched.
var sServiceUrl = this.getMetadata().getManifestEntry("sap.app").dataSources.mainService.uri;
var oModel = new sap.ui.model.odata.ODataModel(sServiceUrl, {
json: true,
loadMetadataAsync: true
});
oModel.attachMetadataFailed(function() {
// Call some functions from APP controller to show suitable message
}, this);
this.setModel(oModel, "BrandSet");
This part of code causes a call to OData server to fetch data from the remote server.
Now I want to order the data in backend and then receive the data. Assume the sorting function has been implemented correctly in the backend.
Thus, if I use $orderby=name or $orderby=price it has to be sorted by name or price respectively.
In some toturial they said for ordering use sorter option inside of the XML view file. Like here:
https://sapui5.hana.ondemand.com/#docs/guide/c4b2a32bb72f483faa173e890e48d812.html
Now my questions are:
How to apply this sorting inside of the Component.js file where the Model is initiated?
The second question is how to apply this ordering when we apply a filter to the model? Like the example that in the following link applied filter:
https://sapui5.hana.ondemand.com/#docs/guide/5295470d7eee46c1898ee46c1b9ad763.html
In fact I am looking for a function or any kind of method that add the $orderby=xxx to the OData service call.
I found a way here: https://sapui5.hana.ondemand.com/docs/api/symbols/sap.ui.model.odata.ODataModel.html#constructor
If I use mParameters.serviceUrlParams then I can add some URL parameter to the service request but it has been said "these parameters will be attached to all requests". Does it mean if I add the $orderbywith this method then I can not get rid of that in the further requests on that data model for example for filtering?
An app would normally be structured a bit differently to what you propose. The general assumption is that there is a lot of data available from the backend and to load all this data at once can cause performance problems, particularly when used over a mobile phone network. Furthermore, the data is an oData Entity Set, that is, a list of many items of the same type, so the data would be presented in the UI with a list or table.
Typically the app would then show the data in some kind of list, such as sap.m.List or sap.m.Table. These controls are designed to work with large volumes of data and would load initially the first 20 items from the entity set. Only when the user scrolls down the list of data would additional items be loaded. Also, with these controls the user can decide to sort or filter the data according to certain fields in your data.
Assuming that your app is work like this, here is the standard approach.
The Main model (as defined in the manifest) would not be loaded in Component.js, but loaded via the binding defined in the xml views of the app. In the views you could define a fixed sort and/or filter in the binding or you could allow the user to set the sort and filter criteria. This would be handled programmatically in the respective controllers. Normally the changes that the user makes to the sort and filter would be applied separately. For example, he/she chooses an new sort order, the oData is reread and the new sort order shown in the UI. Then the user may chose a filter criteria, and this is applied too. Of course, in your programming logic in the controllers you would need to have applied any default sort and filter criteria and then maybe combine or replace these with the criteria selected by the user.
To see an example of this, I would suggest to look at the Template Application “SAP Fiori Master-Detail Application” in the WebIDE.
We consider Orbeon PE 4.10 for one of our projects. I know that you can add custom form elements as XBL components. Therefore, I read this documentation.
For our project, we need to add datamodel elements to the Form Builder (like the creation of an Microsoft Access form for an existing Access datamodel). Let´s say we have an existing database datamodel with an entity event. This entity has e.g. 15 database attributes like an arrival date, expected number of participants, topic, description etc.
When I create a new form for an event in Form Builder, I want to see all the fields mentioned above in a tree structure so that users can drag and drop those fields into a form (exactly like in Access). In addition, there should be a data binding between the form elements and the database entity.
My question is, of this is possible to realize without changing the source code of orbeon forms PE?
Orbeon Forms doesn't do "relational database mapping", but instead focuses on data capture. So the approach is maybe a little bit different than what you would do in Access. Instead of starting with a database schema, and then designing a form that you map to that schema, you start with the form, and Form Builder automatically creates an XML document for you that holds the data entered by users, and that XML document is typically stored as-is in your database. Then, when you need to access the data, you have Orbeon Forms send the XML to your app, go through the REST API, or access the XML directly in the database.
Now, about the event use case you're describing, if this is something that happens in several forms, you can create a section template for that event, and reuse it whereever you need it. For cases where you need something more custom, like a special date field, map field, or special type of number that requires a custom validation, you can create your own XBL component, which gives you more control, but requires a little more work to put in place compared to section templates.
I think the answer is no, but the question has been put to me so I'd like to confirm. My understanding is that any custom XBL control that I create for use in Form Builder can have one and only one value. Is this correct?
I have always assumed this because the control name is then used in the data instance as the name of the node which contains the the value.
This question comes from the desire to have reusable components with multiple values, for example, an Address control so that addresses can be recorded consistently and the same set of fields does not need to be added many times. Orbeon does have some support for this in the form of Section Templates but because the control names stay the same in each instance of a Section Template this does not work well with our design.
The best idea I've had is that a custom control which records multiple values could encode all the values into a single text string for example in JSON. Of course, this is not ideal.
Are there any other options?
It is possible for controls to have multiple values. When that happens the values are typically stored in nested elements. I.e. a control could bound to an element <address>, and could create nested elements <street>, <city>,<country>, etc to store the different parts of the address.
In practice, you can look at how this is done in the Image Annotation annotation control (see wpaint.xbl), which creates nested elements <image> and <annotation>, leveraging the xxbl:mirror="true" functionality.
I am bootstrapping myself through my very first ASP MVC project, and could use some suggestions regarding the most appropriate (data-side) model binding solution I should pursue. The project is 'small', which really just means I have very limited time for chasing down dead-ends, which cramps my available learning curve. Thanks heaps for reading!
Background: a simple address search app (ASP.NET MVC 3) that sends user form input to a vendor-sourced server, and presents the results returned from the server in a rules-driven format. There is no CRUD-style repository as such; this is an entirely read-only application. The vendor's .NET server API specifies the use DataTable objects (System.Data.DataTable) for both requests and replies.
Currently: I have a prototype under construction to validate server behavior and inform the application's design. There is a conventional MVC data model class for the input form which works great, auto-binding with the view just as you'd expect. When submitted, the controller passes this input model to my vendor API wrapper, which is currently binding to the request table medieval-style:
public DataTable GetGlobalCandidateAddresses(AddressInputModel input)
{
...
DataRow newRow = dataTable.NewRow();
newRow[0] = input.AddressLine1;
newRow[1] = input.AddressLine2;
newRow[2] = input.AddressLine3;
...
dataTable.Rows.Add(newRow);
...
This works fine; the inputs are fixed and have very light validation requirements. However, if there is a modern framework solution for quickly reflecting a DataTable from my model, that would be peachy.
My real conundrum, however, is on the reply. The table returned by the server contains a variable column-set, with any combination of at least 32 possible unordered fields on a per-transaction basis. Some of the column names contain compiler-invalid characters ("status.description") that won't map literally to a model property name. I will also have a need to dynamically map or combine some of the reply fields in the view model, based on a series of rules (address formats vary considerably by country), so not all fields are 1-to-1.
Just to get the prototype fired up and running, I am currently passing the reply DataTable instance all the way back to a strongly-typed view, which spins it out into the display exactly as is. This is nice for quickly validating the server replies, but is not sufficient for the real app (much less satisfying best practices!).
Question: what is my best tooling approach for binding DataTable rows and columns into a proper model class for display in a view, including some custom binding rules, where no underlying database is present?
Virtually all of the training materials I am consuming discuss classic database repository scenarios. The OnModelCreating override available in the Entity Framework seems ideal in some respects, but can you use a DBContext without a DB connection or schema?
If I have to roll my own model binder, are there any tricks I should consider? I've been away from .NET for a while (mostly Java & SQL), so I'm picking up LINQ as I go as well as MVC.
Thanks again for your attention!
Create a poco display model AddressDisplay and do custom object mapping from the data table to the display model. You can use data annotations for formatting but you can also do that in your custom mapping. You shouldn't need to create a custom model binder.
So create two poco models, AddressInput and AddressDisplay, you can use data annotations on AddressInput for validation. When AddressInput is posted back, map it to the outbound data table. When the response is received, map the inbound data table to AddressDisplay and return the view to the user.