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Introduction

Magnolia 5.1 introduce a new way to handle properties bound to a dialog field. Until Magnolia 5.1 the only way to modify the default behavior (a field is bound to a simple property) was to override the FieldBuilder.getOrCreateProperty(..  method.
Now by configuration we have the possibility to define custom way to initialize a property and link it to a field. This is us full for complex fields like MultiField CompositeField that needs more than one property bound to them.

Basic Concept

A Field  is linked to a Property  used to store the field value. This Property is set by the FieldBuilder based on the passed Item .
For example a TextField named 'text' has a Property bound to the Item  Property 'text'.

Mockup image file mockup_item.png (version -1) not found. Did someone delete it?

Now for a MultiField, the related Property can no more be a simple Property but rather a ListProperty . This ListProperty will be populated with the individual field Property values.
This is the first information needed in order to handle complex fields: The PropertType (Basic, List, Composite,...)

Mockup image file mockup_fields 2.png (version -1) not found. Did someone delete it?

The way values of the ListProperty is set and retrieve from the related Item is also something we would like to configure. For example I may want to have a MultiField composed of DateField stored in a single multi value.
The same field may be used in another place but the values have to be stored as sub item (nodes) elements.
PropertyHandler is the second information needed. PropertyHandler handle the way property element are retrieve and set to an Item.

Configuration

These configurations are done in the common fields Properties.

PropertyDescriptionDefault valueValid values
propertyBuilder

Concrete property Type and Handler definition. Optional.
If not defined,  BasicProperty and BasicPropertyHandler are used.
(warning) ComplexeFieldDefinition may define default property Type and Handler in their constructor.

  
    propertyHandlerImplementation class of  PropertyHandler set to the propertyType used to set and get values in certain format.  
    propertyTypeImplementation class of Vaadin Property set as Field PropertyDatasource.  

Default behavior

By default BasicProperty and BasicPropertyHandler are used.

The field is created based on the related form Item. BasicPropertyHandler will:

  • Retrieve the Item.property if this property already exist on the Item.
    property is search based on the Field name defined as name property on the field definition. 
  • Create the Item.property if this property do not yet exist on the Item.
     property is created based on the following field definition:
    • type: property will get the desired type
    • defaultValue: if define, the string representation of the default field value is converted to a new typed value.  

Implemented

Implemented Property

Implemented Handlers

 

Limitation

 

How to

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