Kexi/Plugins/AutoForms: Difference between revisions

Latest revision as of 16:00, 6 April 2023

AutoForms are not implemented in KEXI but will be very useful.

History

2005: There was old code in plugins/autoforms/ directory in Kexi 0.x quickly disabled
2005: Form Templates/Wizards discussion started by ccpasteur, jstaniek
2014: plugins/autoforms/ removed in Sep in Kexi 2.9. Original maintainer was Adam Pigg.

Introduction

For a quick introduction to AutoForms see this find a book or tutorial for MS Access.

To automate forms creation, one needs some sort of template that can be used to generate the form when only input data source and certains form configuration/parameters are available.

There are several approaches to form templates. Two main approaches can be identified: real AutoForms and forms generated by an assistant.

AutoForms

Real AutoForms gives a certain amount of automation and round-tripping. A user access to certain settings provided by a template, visual or behavioral. There is no generation of physical form that can be later edited by the in the Design view. Instead the user can further alter the settings later.

Advantages:

The change of form's data source is reflected in form design automatically. For example, new fields are added, removed fields disappear, changes made to types are recognized in the choice of form widgets.
Potentially, the form design can be later used to automatically generate forms for different media such as web or mobile interfaces with similar look and feel.

Disadvantages:

The user is unable to edit deep details of every fragment of the form, such widgets or their relative position, as long as the template parameters are not sufficient to perform the task. So the feature set of templates should be sufficient for real use cases.

Forms generated by an assistant

These forms are fundamentally different from the "real" AutoForms because after the form generation, ordinary form is created and saved in the project. Such form can be then open the Design view and modified as it would be created by hand from scratch by the user.

Advantages:

The user has power to deeply alter the form design according to the needs, copy, remove or duplicate form's elements

Disadvantages:

Subsequent changes to the form's data source have no effect on the form's layout at all. This is not different from forms created by hand.

Common aspects of AutoForms and Form assistants

Regardless of the type of the form automation, the routines that generate forms based on data source design and metadata can be a single shared code. (this aspect shall be in sync with the planned use of Python as the KEXI-wide scripting standard)
It is advised that the logic of templates is implemented in a scripting to facilitate modification of power users and partners.

@@ Line 11: / Line 11: @@
 To automate forms creation, one needs some sort of '''template''' that can be used to generate the form when only input data source and certains form configuration/parameters are available.
-There are several approaches to form templates. Two main approaches can be identified: real AutoForms and forms generated by an assistant.
+There are several approaches to form templates. Two main approaches can be identified: real '''AutoForms''' and '''forms generated by an assistant'''.
 == AutoForms ==
-Real AutoForms. A user access to certain settings provided by a template, visual or behavioral. There is no generation of physical form that can be later edited by the in the Design view. Instead the user can further alter the settings later.
+Real AutoForms gives a certain amount of automation and round-tripping. A user access to certain settings provided by a template, visual or behavioral. There is no generation of physical form that can be later edited by the in the Design view. Instead the user can further alter the settings later.
-The advantage here is that change of a data source's schema causes immediate update of form's layout. Other advantage is that a form design can be later used to automatically generate a web page with pretty the same look and feel.
+Advantages:
-Disadvantage: user is unable to do "anything" regarding to widget's positioning. To wipe out this disadvantage, we're allowing subforms to put inside (a subform do not need to be an autoform) and providing fairly rich set of autoform's settings.
+* The change of form's data source is reflected in form design automatically. For example, new fields are added, removed fields disappear, changes made to types are recognized in the choice of form widgets.
+* Potentially, the form design can be later used to automatically generate forms for different media such as web or mobile interfaces with similar look and feel.
+Disadvantages:
+* The user is unable to edit deep details of every fragment of the form, such widgets or their relative position, as long as the template parameters are not sufficient to perform the task. So the feature set of templates should be sufficient for real use cases.
 == Forms generated by an assistant ==
-These forms can't be called "real" AutoForms because after the form generation, user ordinary form is generated. Then it can be open the Design view and edited as it would be created by hand from scratch by the user.
+These forms are fundamentally different from the "real" AutoForms because after the form generation, ordinary form is created and saved in the project. Such form can be then open the Design view and modified as it would be created by hand from scratch by the user.
-Advantage of this form type: obviously, user has power to tweak a form _if_ she wants to.
+Advantages:
-Disadvantage: subsequent changes to data soruce's schema have no effect in form's layout.
+* The user has power to deeply alter the form design according to the needs, copy, remove or duplicate form's elements
-Main common feature of most templates is that these are procedural templates, i.e. number, source and type of database fields depends on data source user picked on creation.
+Disadvantages:
+*Subsequent changes to the form's data source have no effect on the form's layout at all. This is not different from forms created by hand.
+== Common aspects of AutoForms and Form assistants ==
+* Regardless of the type of the form automation, the routines that generate forms based on data source design and metadata can be '''a single shared code'''. (this aspect shall be in sync with the planned use of Python as the KEXI-wide scripting standard)
+* It is advised that the logic of templates is implemented in a scripting to facilitate modification of power users and partners.