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How to advice - many forms to many instances

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Hank Ratzesberger-3

How to advice - many forms to many instances

Hi,

Hoping someone can take a few minutes for some feedback on my implementation plan. I'm trying to edit xml documents that have many "things"of many different types.

So I thought, well, I need one form for each type of thing, then when the user wants to edit a particular one of the items, it is copied into the instance bound to the form. The user edits the item, clicks an update, the form data replaces the "thing" in the main instance.

The other way I suppose, I could do this, is put a form on the row following the description of the change, and make the case relevant. I think I could figure out how to the get the controls to bind to the particular item in the summary row.

(Well, I think I have decided to go with this later idea, its much more like the Bookcast example.)

Thanks,

Hank

The document I want to edit is for Liquibase, a SQL change control tool:

http://www.liquibase.org/documentation/changes/index.html

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Hank Ratzesberger
XMLWerks.com

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Hank Ratzesberger-3

Re: How to advice - many forms to many instances

Happy New Year everyone.

I continue to struggle with the best way (is there a design pattern for this?) to take a very complex xml file and present the portions of it that fit into a form.

Given an xml file that is very random -- it has various elements in any order, and each element requires it's own form to edit, can xforms logic branch in such a way that a form can be built for each of the elements and new ones that are added?

I thought this might be possible by having an instance for each type of change <createTable>, <addColumn>, etc., then copy from the main instance to the one that is bound to the form, but I don't see a way to copy back.

I have just about concluded that it requires xslt on the server which can create the form 'on the fly' that matches the complex xml file.

Any thoughts? Here is some code:

Thanks,Hank

</column>

</column>

</createTable>

</changeSet>

</addColumn>

</changeSet>

<addLookupTable existingTableName="person"

existingColumnName="state" newTableName="state" newColumnName="id"

newColumnDataType="char(2)" />

</changeSet>

</databaseChangeLog>

<xf:switch>

<xf:case id="case-loadData">

<xf:group>

<xf:label>loadData</xf:label>

<xf:input ref="instance('edit-loadData')/@catalogName">

<xf:label>Catalog Name:</xf:label>

</xf:input>

<xf:input ref="instance('edit-loadData')/@schemaName">

<xf:label>Schema Name:</xf:label>

</xf:input>

<xf:input ref="instance('edit-loadData')/@tableName">

<xf:label>Table Name:</xf:label>

</xf:input>

<xf:input ref="instance('edit-loadData')/@file">

<xf:label>File:</xf:label>

</xf:input>

</xf:group>

</xf:case>

<xf:repeat nodeset="/databaseChangeLog/changeSet" id="change-sets">

<xf:var name="thing" value="./child::*"/>

<xf:trigger>

<xf:label>Edit</xf:label>

<xf:action ev:event="DOMActivate">

<xf:delete context="" at="" nodeset=""/>

<xf:insert context="instance(concat('edit-',name(child::*))" at="0" origin="$thing"/>

<xf:toggle case="case-{name(child::*)}"/>

Hank Ratzesberger

XMLWerks.com

Hank Ratzesberger-3

Re: How to advice - many forms to many instances

In reply to this post by Hank Ratzesberger-3

I thought I would get back to say that I have part of the solution.

Firstly, at the top level of my document, I DO have a list of the same elements. Otherwise, I'm not sure what XForms would do if you created the repeat <xf:repeat nodeste="*"> to iterate all/any child nodes.

Instead, I can iterate all the <changeSet> elements

<xf:repeat nodeset="changeSet" id="change-sets">
    <xh:tr>
        <xh:td>

Within the changeSet is just one type of change, but I don't know what it is, 
so I just put it into a variable, and get it's name:

            <xf:var name="thing" value="*"/>
            <xf:var name="nameOf" value="name(*)"/>
            <xf:trigger>
                <xf:label>Edit</xf:label>
                <xf:action ev:event="DOMActivate">

I have an instance for each type which has its own form, e.g. 'edit-changeColumn'
or 'edit-addIndex' etc. I insert my current node into the "editable instance" as
the first node and the bindings still work because they default to the first:
                    <xf:insert context="instance(concat('edit-',$nameOf))" at="0" origin="$thing"/>

Now the editable instance has two elements, so I need to delete the old one.
                    <xf:delete ref="instance(concat('edit-',$nameOf))/*[2]"/>

Now I can toggle the form.  This works because there is only one case on this page,
and I presume it would break if there were others.

Next, I have to figure out how to replace the node in this repeat with that in the
editable instance.

Cheers,
Hank

                    <xf:toggle case="case-{$nameOf}"/>
                </xf:action>
            </xf:trigger>

On Tue, Dec 30, 2014 at 1:46 PM, Hank Ratzesberger <[hidden email]> wrote:

Hi,

Hoping someone can take a few minutes for some feedback on my implementation plan. I'm trying to edit xml documents that have many "things"of many different types.
--
Hank Ratzesberger
XMLWerks.com

Hank Ratzesberger

XMLWerks.com

Alessandro Vernet

Re: How to advice - many forms to many instances

Administrator

Hi Hank,

If I understand the problem, the typical way of doing this is as follows:

<xf:repeat nodeset="changeSet">
<xf:var name="thing" value="*"/>
<xf:var name="nameOf" value="name(*)"/>
<xf:group ref=".[$nameOf = 'createTable']">
UI elements to edit a "createTable"
</xf:group>
<xf:group ref=".[$nameOf = 'addColumn']">
UI elements to edit a "addColumn"
</xf:group>
…
</xf:repeat>

In fact, initially, this is what Form Builder (which is itself using XForms) was doing, with an xf:repeat iterating over the controls in the source of the form you were editing, and then "selecting" which control to show based on the actual control in the XForms source.

Now, in your case, it looks to me like you just want to be able to edit the items when the user clicks on the Edit button. But I didn't get the part of you needing another instance; how is edit-addColumn different from the content of addColumn? Are you doing an insert because you want to keep the original data, in case users press "Cancel" instead of "Save" when editing? But then, why not duplicate <addColumn>?

Alex

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Hank Ratzesberger-3

Re: How to advice - many forms to many instances

Hi Alessandro,

On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 6:09 PM, Alessandro Vernet <[hidden email]> wrote:

hmm, yet it appears to me for each iteration of changeSet, a group
will be created
for each of the two dozen types, though only one will be visible because the ref
will evaluate to relevant. Is that correct? Or is there no overhead because the
creation of the elements happens on the event (xforms-refresh?) ?

> In fact, initially, this is what Form Builder (which is itself using XForms)
> was doing, with an xf:repeat iterating over the controls in the source of
> the form you were editing, and then "selecting" which control to show based
> on the actual control in the XForms source.
>
> Now, in your case, it looks to me like you just want to be able to edit the
> items when the user clicks on the Edit button. But I didn't get the part of
> you needing another instance; how is edit-addColumn different from the
> content of addColumn? Are you doing an insert because you want to keep the
> original data, in case users press "Cancel" instead of "Save" when editing?
> But then, why not duplicate <addColumn>?

The edit-addColumn does indeed edit the same content, it was not clear
to me how display the form based on the type of content, without a lot of
conditional statements. (There was a small benefit of being able to reset
just the section being edited.)

Thank you, let me think about this and give it a try, it certainly would reduce
the number of instances!

--Hank

>
> Alex
>
>
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Hank Ratzesberger
XMLWerks.com

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Hank Ratzesberger-3

Re: How to advice - many forms to many instances

In reply to this post by Alessandro Vernet

Hi Alex,

A great idea, I'm rather surprised the Orbeon engine is this clever.
This pattern will create a group to match the kind of element that needs
editing and it will edit the main instance directly. It displays/creates the
group only when the ref is relevant (matches the name).

<xf:repeat nodeset="lb:changeSet" id="change-sets">
<xf:var name="this" value="*"/>
<xf:var name="nameOf" value="name(*)"/>

<xf:group ref=".[$nameOf = 'loadData']">
<xf:label>Load Data</xf:label>
<xf:input ref="$this/@catalogName">
<xf:label>Catalog Name:</xf:label>
</xf:input>
....

<xf:group ref=".[$nameOf = 'addColumn']">
<xf:label>Add Column</xf:label>
<xf:input ref="$this/@tableName">
<xf:label>Table Name:</xf:label>
</xf:input>

One thing is I needed to create a variable, $this for the reference to
bind in the control. The controls did not appear for example:

<xf:input ref="@schemaName">
<xf:input ref="./@schemaName">

only this works:

<xf:input ref="$this/@schemaName">

Very best,
Hank

On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 6:09 PM, Alessandro Vernet <[hidden email]> wrote:

> Hi Hank,
>
> If I understand the problem, the typical way of doing this is as follows:
>
> <xf:repeat nodeset="changeSet">
> <xf:var name="thing" value="*"/>
> <xf:var name="nameOf" value="name(*)"/>
> <xf:group ref=".[$nameOf = 'createTable']">
> UI elements to edit a "createTable"
> </xf:group>
> <xf:group ref=".[$nameOf = 'addColumn']">
> UI elements to edit a "addColumn"
> </xf:group>
> …
> </xf:repeat>
>
> In fact, initially, this is what Form Builder (which is itself using XForms)
> was doing, with an xf:repeat iterating over the controls in the source of
> the form you were editing, and then "selecting" which control to show based
> on the actual control in the XForms source.
>