How to map Vaadin tables to form properties?

[andregs]

Hi,

I'm building an user form using Vaadin as explained here: http://vaadin.com/wiki/-/wiki/Main/Building%20Vaadin%20Applications%20on%20top%20of%20Activiti

My form has some text fields and also a Vaadin editable Table. The user clicks on a "new item" button to create new items (aka rows) in the table. When the user submits the form, I want to map the submited form data (including the table items) to activiti form properties. I already have one <activiti:formProperty /> for each field in my form, but I don't know how to map the table items.

Must I have one activiti:formProperty for the entire table? If so, how can I convert the entire table data to the Map<String, String> required by FormService.submitStartFormData()?

Thanks for your help,

[frederikherema1]

As a matter of fact, activiti-webapp-explorer2 has this mechanism built in, and is vaadin. The default form-type (string, date, boolean, …) are rendered as widgets on a form, which exposes Map<String, String> which can be used to submit as properties. This form also does the required-validation. On top of that, it allows you to plug in rendering for custom form-property types.

@see http://svn.codehaus.org/activiti/activiti/trunk/modules/activiti-webapp-explorer2/src/main/java/org/...

@see org.activiti.explorer.ui.form.FormPropertiesForm
@see org.activiti.explorer.ui.form.FormPropertyRenderer

[andregs]

I'm glad Explorer2 will be Vaadin based. Unfortunately, I still don't understand how to map the table to form property… I'm newbie and learning a bit more every day.

I think I have two options here:
1. serialize the whole table data in a string, and submit this string as a regular form property.
2. create a customFormType, as in here: http://forums.activiti.org/en/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1401

I think the second one is the best way, but I don't know how to create such formType… Could you help me here? It's easy to extend the AbstractFormType, but I don't know how to use my custom class.

Maybe is there another way of doing this?

Thanks for your time,

[andregs]

Please, do you need more information about my questions?

Thanks,

[frederikherema1]

The way to go is to extend the AbstractFormType, and add the class to the configuration of you engine, like this:

<bean id="processEngineConfiguration" class="org.activiti.spring.SpringProcessEngineConfiguration">
   <property name="dataSource" ref="dataSource" />
   <property name="transactionManager" ref="transactionManager" />
   <property name="databaseSchemaUpdate" value="true" />
   <property name="jobExecutorActivate" value="true" />
        <property name="customFormTypes">
          <list>
            <ref bean="userFormType"/>
          </list>
        </property>
  </bean>

<!–  Custom form types –>
  <bean id="userFormType" class="org.activiti.explorer.form.UserFormType"/>

[anshuman]

Hi andregs,
Just want to know if you are able to map the table data to the form properties.Facing the same issue.In my case i received a xml request from the client say for example:
<Errorlist>
<Error>
<errorcode>123</errorcode>
<errordesc>xyz..</errordesc>
</Error>
<Error>
<errorcode>345</errorcode>
<errordesc>abc..</errordesc>
</Error>
<Errorlist>
I want to display the Error contents in the table in activiti explorer.Can you suggest how to proceed with this??

[jbarrez]

I just wrote down on my blog how to create custom form types: see http://www.jorambarrez.be/blog/2013/03/13/creating-a-new-form-property-in-activiti/