Adding a form definition to exist does not show up on orbeon summary

Hi,
We store our orbeon form definitions in a separate eXist v2.1. I'd like to be able to directly PUT a form definition into the eXist database then use it in Orbeon form runner. However after a PUT the form does not show up on the Orbeon summary page.

So for example I try:
curl -d @exist/form.xml --header "Content-Type:text/xml;charset=UTF-8" -X PUT http://orbeon:secret@exist.dev:8080/exist/rest/db/orbeon/fr/form/app/form/form.xhtml

should this be enough for Orbeon to pick up this form definition? Is there anything else I need to do to 'activate' or publish the form?

Thanks,
Willem

Hi Willem,

Form definitions can exist in 2 places within your database:

1. As data in the orbeon/builder app: this happens when you first create a form in Form Builder. After saving, the form is visible from the Form Builder summary page (which is just like any other summary page).

2. As published forms: this happens when you publish a form from Form Builder. Then the form is accessible from the Form Runner home page (/fr/), and users can access the /new page for that form.

You've just PUT in the form in no 2, which means that your form won't be visible to the Form Builder summary page. Does this make more sense?

Alex

Thanks Alex,

After some experimenting I found out that when we PUT the same form definition to two locations it appears in the summary page and it's ready for usage:

<exist-url>/exist/rest/db/orbeon/fr/app-name/form-name/form/form.xhtml

and

<exist-url>/exist/rest/db/orbeon/fr/orbeon/builder/data/<arbitrary GUID>/data.xml

This works for us. Our use case is that we manage form versions in git and we want to be able to push updated form definitions out to various environments without having to use the orbeon form builder for that environment.

Thanks,
Willem

Hi Willem,

Yes, exactly, if you'd like the file to be both available from Form Builder, and published, then you need to push it to both URLs. And I'm glad this is now working for you.

Alex