Setting Form Elements Dynamically

Elements can have default values and/or options to select from. These can be specified in the Attributes panel as described on the documentation pages of the respective form element (see Prepopulation for each supported form element).
There may be cases, however, where values of form elements need to be set dynamically at service runtime. Doing this is possible for all form elements.

Select Field Example

The following example shows how to set options to a select field.

UseLib_CustomerData_Example

Click here to download a simple example model that uses the CustomerAddress_Lib library.

Building the Data Model Structure for a Select Field

The mentioned UseLib_CustomerAddress_Example contains the following form Form_SelectCustomer:

To be able to set a list of values to a select field, you need to build a certain structure in your data model in the Implementation folder. This structure is based on PAS data types that are provided with the Base Types.
Wanting to prepopulate the customer select field select_Customer with custom data dynamically, you need to prepare the the following structure in your data model:

Elements marked in orange need to be created, elements marked in red must have a name that conforms to certain rules.

In the example service, a select field select_Customer on form SelectCustomer is populated from an array of customers.
For creating the needed structure, proceed described below.

In your Implementation folder, create a class that defines the attributes of a select field. In the example that would be SelectField_Attributes.
Add a property of type Base Types.PAS Form Elements.pas.form.elements.select.OptionConfiguration to this class. This property will contain the options.

Create an extended class that derives from your form class.
In the example, that would be Form_SelectCustomer_extended which derives from Form_SelectCustomer.

This new form class must extend the form class by two elements having specific names:

a property called <name of the select field>_init
This property must be of the type you created earlier, the type that defines the attributes of a select field (e.g. property select_Customer_init of type SelectField_Attributes).
an static operation called init_<name of the select field>
This operation must have exactly one output parameter having the type of the owning class. An example for that is operation init_select_Customer , having the output parameter formData of type Form_SelectCustomer_extended .

You can add as many input parameters to this operations as you need for setting the field options. The example operation has one input array of type Customer that contains the customer data that should be used to prepopulate the customer select field.

Setting the Options for a Select Field

To actually set the options, you need to implement the init_... operation. The example operation init_select_Customer is implemented with a mapping diagram.

Using a foreach loop, values from the customers array are set to the options array of the select field. You can use the select field itself (select_Customer) to initialize the default selection of the select field.

UseLib_CustomerData_Example

Click here to download a simple example model that uses the CustomerAddress_Lib library.

Form_InitialDataLoading_Checkbox_Example

Click here to download a simple example model that shows how you can initialize checkbox elements dynamically in a form.

Available Properties for Dynamic Access

Every form element has a set of default and additional properties that you can initialize dynamically in your execution. Find below a list of all element properties that can be set dynamically.

Property	Type	Available for	Possible Values		Example
Label (label)	String	all form elements	any string
Placeholder (placeholder)	String	Text Box Text Area	any string
Read-only (readonly)	Boolean	all interactive elements	true	Element is read-only.
Read-only (readonly)	Boolean	all interactive elements	false	Element is not read-only (default).
Mandatory (mandatory)	Boolean	all form elements	true	Element is mandatory.
Mandatory (mandatory)	Boolean	all form elements	false	Element is not mandatory (default).
CSS Class (cssClass)	String	all form elements	a valid CSS class from your associated CSS file
Regular Expression (regex)	String	Text Box	a valid regular expression
Image Element
Horizontal Alignment (horizontalAlign)	Integer	Image (Form)	0	Align the image to the left (default).
			1	Align the image to the horizontal center.
			2	Align the image to the right.
Description (description)	String	Image (Form)	any string
Caption (caption)	String	Image (Form)	any string
Target URL (targetUrl)	String	Image (Form)	a valid URL
Image (source)	String	Image (Form)	a valid URL
Select Field / Radio Button Group / Checkbox
Options (optionsConfiguration)	OptionConfiguration	Select Field Radio Button Group	an array of label/value pairs		UseLib_CustomerData_Example Click here to download a simple example model that uses the CustomerAddress_Lib library. Form_InitialDataLoading_Checkbox_Example Click here to download a simple example model that shows how you can initialize checkbox elements dynamically in a form.
Layout Orientation (orientation)	Integer	Radio Button Group	0	Distribute the radio buttons horizontally.
Layout Orientation (orientation)	Integer	Radio Button Group	1	Distribute the radio buttons vertically.
Label Position (labelPosition)	String	Checkbox	before	Display the label before the checkbox.
Label Position (labelPosition)	String	Checkbox	after	Display the label after the checkbox (default).
File Upload Element
Allowed File Types (allowedFileTypes)	String	File Upload	an array of values
Allowed Mime Types (allowedMimeTypes)	String	File Upload	an array of values
Max File Size (maxFileSizeMB)	Float	File Upload	any float value
Upload Type (uploadType)	String	File Upload	Single	Only single file upload (default).
Upload Type (uploadType)	String	File Upload	Multiple	Allow multi-file upload.
profileName	String	File Upload	a valid Designer namespace
Date Picker
dateFormat	String	Date Picker	one of DD.MM.YYYY (default) MM.DD.YYYY YYYY.MM.DD
UseCurrentDate (useCurrentDate)	Boolean	Date Picker	true	Display the current date.
UseCurrentDate (useCurrentDate)	Boolean	Date Picker	false	Provide a date picker to select a date (default).
Data Table
items	Array of data table item	Data Table	an array of valid table item objects
columnModel	Column Model	Data Table	a valid column configuration object
Rows per Pages (rowsPerPage)	String	Data Table	a valid count of rows per page
Remove Row (actionRemoveRow)	Boolean	Data Table	true	Removing table rows is allowed.
Remove Row (actionRemoveRow)	Boolean	Data Table	false	Removing table rows is not allowed (default).
Add Row (actionAddRow)	Boolean	Data Table	true	Adding new tables rows is allowed.
Add Row (actionAddRow)	Boolean	Data Table	false	Adding new table rows is not allowed (default).
No Data Text (noDataTxt)	String	Data Table	any string
preSelection	String	Data Table	name of a Boolean column key that should be selected from the table
selectable	Boolean	Data Table	true	Display a checkbox before each data row to be able to select rows.
selectable	Boolean	Data Table	false	Data rows are not selectable (default).
emptyCell	String	Data Table	any string

Property Types

Column Model

Property	Type	Description	Allowed Values
name	String	Specify a column name.	a string that conforms with the element naming rules
emptyCell	String	Specify a text for empty cells.	any string
label	String	Specify a column label.	any string
cssClass	String	Specify a CSS class that contains styling information for the column.	a valid CSS class
hidden	Boolean	Define the visibilty of the column.	true	Column is visible.
hidden	Boolean	Define the visibilty of the column.	false	Column is hidden (default).
editable	Boolean	Specify whether the colum should be editable.	true	Column is editable.
editable	Boolean	Specify whether the colum should be editable.	false	Column is read-only (default).
filterable	Boolean	Specify wheter the column should be filterable.	true	Column is filterable (default).
filterable	Boolean	Specify wheter the column should be filterable.	false	Column is not filterable.
resize	Boolean	Specify wheter the column should be resizable.	true	The width of the column is sizable.
resize	Boolean	Specify wheter the column should be resizable.	false	The column has a fixed calculated width.
sorting	String	Define the sorting direction of the column contents if sorting is allowed (see disableSort below).	no value	Do not sort the table contents by this column (default).
			ascending	Sort table contents by this column ascending.
			descending	Sort table contents by this column descending.
disableSort	Boolean	Disable sorting for this column. The sorting direction can be defined with sorting (see above).	true	Column is not sortable (default).
disableSort	Boolean		false	Table contents can be sorted by column contents.

Related Pages:

Supported Form Elements