Some starter Orbeon questions

Im running Orbeon 4.3.1 PE and Orbeon 4.3 CE

1. Is it possible to put repeat grid inside of another repeat grid ? Could I achieve that by editing source code in Form Builder or should I write new XBL components for that ?

2. Is editing of the source code in Form Builder and writing XForms are two equal things ? Switching between those two approaches in documentation led me to little misunderstanding.

3. Is this  approach is still up-to-date with Orbeon 4.3.1 PE ?

4. What are the differences between Orbeon 4.3.1 P.E. and Orbeon 4.3 C.E., I haven't noticed any, though on the Orbeon website is written that advanced features, like oracle support, PDF templates, services and actions are not supported in C.E... I mean, I can use localization, ws, db services by simply copying the source code from PE to CE, though I cant add them by default in CE. I also can use Oracle database services in Orbeon CE.

5. If Im missing something then what are limitations of using Orbeon 4.3 CE with Oracle databases ?

6. Can I load validation settings to orbeon 4.3.1 through a web service or database ?

Im running Orbeon 4.3.1 PE and Orbeon 4.3 CE

> 1. Is it possible to put repeat grid inside of another repeat grid ?

There is no UI for this in Form Builder.

> Could I achieve that by editing source code in Form Builder

Probably. You are likely to have issue with the layout as a repeated grid is pretty large. Also you will need to add a template instance. And there is a risk that Form Builder might behave in unpredictable ways if you then try to edit the form with the UI, as it currently doesn't know about nested grids.

> or should I write new XBL components for that ?

You probably wouldn't need a new XBL component. The current fr:grid component might be enough.

> 2. Is editing of the source code in Form Builder and writing XForms are two equal things ? Switching between those two approaches in documentation led me to little misunderstanding.

Yes and no. Editing the source code of a form produce by Form Builder might entail writing XForms. But you can also write standalone XForms which has nothing to do with Form Builder and Form Runner.

> 3. Is this  approach is still up-to-date with Orbeon 4.3.1 PE ?

This tutorial shows how to write plain XForms and how to hook it up with XPL and the Page Flow Controller. You can still do this, but unless you have really good reasons or love XForms, we encourage users to use Form Runner and Form Builder.

> 4. What are the differences between Orbeon 4.3.1 P.E. and Orbeon 4.3 C.E., I haven't noticed any, though on the Orbeon website is written that advanced features, like oracle support, PDF templates, services and actions are not supported in C.E... I mean, I can use localization, ws, db services by simply copying the source code from PE to CE, though I cant add them by default in CE. I also can use Oracle database services in Orbeon CE.

One difference is that a few features are not enabled in the CE build (although the code is all in the public github repository). We try to limit this approach to more "enterprise" features. But the main difference is really that with PE, you get support and more frequent updates (for example we released 4.3.1 PE, but no 4.3.1 CE).

> 5. If Im missing something then what are limitations of using Orbeon 4.3 CE with Oracle databases ?

Via Form Runner/Form Builder, the difference is that out of the box Oracle access won't work. If you want to copy over the missing files you can certainly do that. The main drawback is that then you have to support yourself and we won't help you much if you have issues as we don't support CE builds (or a custom PE build you might have built yourself).

> 6. Can I load validation settings to orbeon 4.3.1 through a web service or database ?

What do you mean by "validation settings"?

I hope this helps,

-Erik