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XML document structures for data binding When you create pages using the Page Structure tab, FormMaker automatically generates binding structures by default. These XML document structures are created using best assumptions and they can be modified using the Edit or Edit in Editor links on the right hand panel. Please don't forget to use the Refresh Document link to reflect your changes. These document structures fall into two types. The page display documents are used purely to help with generating the bindings, and for previewing the pages. They will not be used by the running application. The action submission documents however will be used at runtime to provide the structure needed to bind the submitted data into. (Unless the 'Use base document structure' option is turned off under Action Configuration.)
The following provides some detail of the decision making processes that are used to generate the XML document structures for data binding:
Standard Palette Controls - When standard palette controls are dropped on to a page a default element using the control name is created within the formData element. Please note that this is the default container for page fields when FormMaker has not been able to establish further binding structure for a given element. The /mvc:eForm/mvc:Control and /mvc:eForm/mvc:Data elements are the generic containers for MVC messages and will be applied to all messages by default. This is to provide a standard wrapper that can be used during development. The same binding structure is generated for Page Display Bindings and Action Submission Bindings. This default structure for the Action Submission Bindings will be used for all actions originating from this page which do not have their own binding structures. See Data Sources later to learn about specific Action Submission Bindings. Composite Palette Controls - When composite palette controls are dropped on to a page an entry for each of the contained standard controls is created within the formData element. Data Sources - When datasource elements are used during page design (W3C Schema, WSDL, Database Schema, Templates, Existing Pages, etc.) FormMaker will detect any elements that may constitute a request structure to a database or web service invocation for example. Based on this it will prompt the designer to select an action (if any actions have been defined in the application map) that may submit the selected information structure that was dragged and dropped onto the page. If an action is selected then a binding fragment that is the same as the element that was dragged will be associated with this action and this structured fragment will be shown when the particular action is selected within the Action Submission Bindings tab during the data binding process.
Data Bindings Binding XPaths