Page History

# this is the 'main' form configuration
form:
  fields:
    title:
      class: info.magnolia.ui.form.poc.definition.TextFieldDefinition
    firstName:
      class: info.magnolia.ui.form.poc.definition.TextFieldDefinition
	lastName:
      class: info.magnolia.ui.form.poc.definition.TextFieldDefinition
    # address is a form component (a subform of the main form) and specifies its own layout.
    # It is declared under fields and we can refer to it as a field
    # see below form/layout/tabs/more/fields/address
    address:
      class: info.magnolia.ui.form.poc.definition.FormDefinition
      fields:
        city:
          class: info.magnolia.ui.form.poc.definition.TextFieldDefinition
        country:
          class: info.magnolia.ui.form.poc.definition.TextFieldDefinition
        nestedphone: # a form component can have sub-form components with their own layout
          class: info.magnolia.ui.form.poc.definition.FormDefinition
          fields:
            quxareaCode:
              class: info.magnolia.ui.form.poc.definition.TextFieldDefinition
  			number:
        layout:
            class: info.magnolia.ui.form.poc.layoutdefinition.MyLayoutTextFieldDefinition
            fieldslayout:
              qux:class: info.magnolia.ui.form.poc.layout.MyLayout	
      layout: # this is the layout for address
        class: info.magnolia.ui.form.poc.layout.DefaultLayoutDefinition
        fields:
          city:
          country:
          nested:
  # this is the main form's layout configuration
  # layout configurations could probably be omitted altogether and rely on a reasonable default 
  layout:
    class: info.magnolia.ui.form.poc.layout.TabbedLayoutDefinition
    tabs:
      personal:
        fields:
          title:
          firstName:
		  lastName:	
      more:
        fields:
          # address is a form component (a subform of the main form)
          # here it is referred to as if it were a plain Field
          address:

LayoutDefinition

• specifies LayoutProducer implementation class

LayoutProducer

• is instantiated from a LayoutDefinition
• createLayout(LayoutDefinition, Map<String, Component>) creates the actual layout (a Vaadin Component) from
  • LayoutDefinition
  • a mapping of field names and actual field components

Form

• is a plain Java class

• during its building process it stores
  • its Binder
  • its own Layout (including sub-form layouts)
  • its sub-forms
• can save and validate self and its sub-forms recursively (should this functionality move away from Form?) 

FormPresenter

• is currently the orchestrator of the form building process
• creates the final form view (a Vaadin Layout)
• instantiates a Form from a FormDefinition

• returns the form view to the caller

• TODO 

• set labels, help messages and descriptions: use something like info.magnolia.ui.dialog.formdialog.FormView?

update forms/fields based on Locale? See info.magnolia.ui.dialog.formdialog.FormPresenterImpl.updateForm()

• it gets passed to DetailPresenter(..) which takes care of initializing actions and other stuff before calling and setting the form view produced by FormPresenter

...
 /***
 * @return a {@link View} as described by this {@link FormDefinition} including nested forms, if any.
 */
public View createFormView(D formDefinition) {
    FormView view = new FormView();
    Form<T> form = formFactory.createForm(formDefinition);
    view.addComponent(form.getLayout());

    return view;
}

TODO

We now have the basic infrastructure to build and bind form components (including arbitrarily nested, complex sub-forms). Layout is split from field definitions. We can also read and write forms and sub-forms without the need for special transformers.

What is left to do. 

• Form
  • styling

  • set labels, help messages and descriptions: use something like info.magnolia.ui.dialog.formdialog.FormView?

  • update forms/fields based on Locale? See info.magnolia.ui.dialog.formdialog.FormPresenterImpl.updateForm()

• pass FormPresenter to DetailPresenter(..) which takes care of initializing actions and other stuff before calling and setting the form view?

• Fields
  • implement them or harden the ones which we began to implement (TextField, SelectField)
  • populating select options based on the value of another field
  • validating a field depending on the value of another field (including within a composite field itself)
  • enabling/disabling fields conditionally
  • potentially custom handling of any field, via plain Vaadin code
  • properly highlighting validation on sub-fields (this should be already taken care of by Vaadin, only need proepr error field styling).
• FormBinder/FormContext
  • currently saving a new item fails cause the node id we get is null.
  • current implementation relies on JcrNodeItemid and JcrNewNodeItemId: not sure we want to use them
• Layout
  • naming
  • Custom layout impl doesn't work
  • provide a Vaadin declarative layout impl

  • In case of resource-based layout we could and should provide flt support (i.e. pre-process the script before binding to the fields)