Navigation:  Managing Forms > Form Definitions >

Static vs Dynamic Fields

Previous page Next page
  rev. 19/10/2010        

In some cases the complete list of items which are presented in DropDown or ComboBox are not fully known at the form design time. In addition, you might want to populate these lists with dynamically generated data from other sources. One example where this is useful is a field which allows the user to select from a list of manufacturers.

 

<field id="FieldID" name="Manufacturers" type="ComboBox">

 <items>

   <item>Unknown</item>

   <item>Armstrong</item>

   <item>ITT Bell and Gosse</item>

   <item>Taco</item>

   <item>Grundfos</item>

 </items>

</field>
 

As manufacturers change the XML Form definitions must also be changed. This can become quite tedious. Often this data is available elsewhere such as a database. It is possible for the field to make use of these other source and dynamically populate the list of items. Modifying the above example and introducing the source and sourceArgs attributes results in the same list of manufactures without having to explicitly define each.

 

<field id="FieldID" name="Manufacturers" type="ComboBox">

 <items source="Manufacturers" sourceArgs="PMP">

   <item>Unknown</item>

 </items>                

</field>

 

This functionality requires some modification within the ManagingEnergy application so please consult a ManagingEnergy developer to add support for new dynamic data sources.



xxx_Static_vs_Dynamic_Fields         ©2011 Managing Energy Inc.