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Form Builder

Default values

For the latest default values of Form Builder properties, see properties-form-builder.xml.

Toolbox

Groups of controls

You configure the contents of the toolbox by configuring properties in this format:
<property as="xs:string" name="oxf.fb.toolbox.group.$GROUPNAME.uri.*.*">
$URLS
</property>
In that property, the value of $GROUPNAME determines a grouping of the controls in the toolbox. The controls are defined by a list of XBL file URLs specified by $URLS. For example:
<property as="xs:string" name="oxf.fb.toolbox.group.text.uri.*.*">
oxf:/forms/orbeon/builder/xbl/text-controls.xbl
oxf:/xbl/orbeon/tinymce/tinymce.xbl
oxf:/xbl/orbeon/explanation/explanation.xbl
</property>
NOTE: With Orbeon Forms 4.5 and earlier, values must be placed in the value attribute.
<property
as="xs:string"
name="oxf.fb.toolbox.group.text.uri.*.*"
value="oxf:/forms/orbeon/builder/xbl/text-controls.xbl
oxf:/xbl/orbeon/tinymce/tinymce.xbl
oxf:/xbl/orbeon/explanation/explanation.xbl"/>
To properly show up in the toolbox, XBL files need to include the appropriate component metadata.

Other toolbox features

In addition to controls, the toolbox has other features which you can enable or disable with the following properties:
<property as="xs:boolean" name="oxf.fb.menu.schema" value="true"/>
<property as="xs:boolean" name="oxf.fb.menu.pdf" value="true"/>
<property as="xs:boolean" name="oxf.fb.menu.edit-source" value="true"/>
<property as="xs:boolean" name="oxf.fb.menu.permissions" value="true"/>
<property as="xs:boolean" name="oxf.fb.menu.permissions.owner-group" value="true"/>
<!-- [SINCE Orbeon Forms 4.6] -->
<property as="xs:boolean" name="oxf.fb.menu.services.http" value="true"/>
<property as="xs:boolean" name="oxf.fb.menu.services.database" value="true"/>
<property as="xs:boolean" name="oxf.fb.menu.actions" value="true"/>
  • [SINCE Orbeon Forms 2022.1 and 2021.1.6] oxf.fb.menu.permissions.owner-group allows you, by setting the value of the property to false, to disable the two lines in the permissions dialog related to owner and group permissions. This is useful if you're always using a custom implementation of the persistence API that doesn't support owner and group permissions and you prefer to hide those options from form authors to avoid possible confusions.

Publish dialog

[SINCE Orbeon Forms 4.6]
By default, the Publish dialog proposes, upon successful publication of a form definition, shortcuts to navigate to the published form's New or Summary pages.
This property allows specifying which of these actions are available:
<property
as="xs:string"
name="oxf.fb.publish.buttons"
value="new summary"/>

The Version dropdown

[SINCE Orbeon Forms 2022.1, 2021.1.3]
When versioning is supported, you can use the following property to control the behavior of the Version dropdown. If versioning isn't supported, this property has no effect. Also, the property has no effect if no version of this form has ever been published: in that case, version 1 will be published. The property can be set to:
  • default-to-select – The dropdown is enabled, and users need to select whether they want to create a new version or overwrite an existing version. This is the default.
  • default-to-next – The dropdown is enabled, and defaults to the choice to create a new version.
  • default-to-latest – The dropdown is enabled, and defaults to overwriting the latest version.
  • force-next – The dropdown is read-only, and a new version will be created on publish.
  • force-latest – The dropdown is read-only, and the latest published version will be overwritten on publish.
<property
as="xs:string"
name="oxf.fb.publish.version"
value="default-to-select"/>

Maximum number of columns

<property
as="xs:integer"
name="oxf.fb.grid.max-columns"
value="4"/>
Use this property to change the default maximum number of grid columns form authors can create. The more columns there are, the more narrow each column is, and when columns become too narrow, some less "elastic" controls might not have enough space to render properly. You want to set this property to a "reasonable" value to reduce the chance of form authors ending up with columns that are too narrow to accommodate certain controls.

Closing sections

<property
as="xs:integer"
name="oxf.fb.section.close"
value="100"/>
Closing sections in Form Builder can improve responsiveness. This property sets the number of controls after which Form Builder will close all sections except the first one when loading a form. Below that number of controls, all sections are open by default.

Action buttons in Form Builder

Action buttons on the Form Builder summary page

This controls which buttons appear on the Form Builder summary page.
<property as="xs:string" name="oxf.fr.summary.buttons.orbeon.builder">
home delete duplicate new
</property>

Action buttons on the Form Builder detail page

This controls which buttons appear on the Form Builder detail page.
<property as="xs:string" name="oxf.fr.detail.buttons.orbeon.builder">
summary new test publish save
</property>

Available languages

<property
as="xs:string"
name="oxf.fr.available-languages.orbeon.builder"
value="en fr es it de"/>
This controls which Form Builder user interface languages appear in the language selector.

Permissions dialog

The permissions dialog allows form authors, amongst other things, to assign permissions to users having a specific roles. In that dialog, form authors can type in a text field the name of the role(s) they want to assign those permissions to. If you're systematically using certain roles, want to save form authors from having to type them, and prevent possible mistakes in the process, you can use the following property to list the role names you want the Form Builder permissions dialog to always show in that dialog:
<property as="xs:string" name="oxf.fb.permissions.role.always-show">
["Organization Owner"]
</property>
The value of this property is an array of strings in the JSON format. For instance, the following screenshot shows the dialog with the above property set (see the line for "Organization owner"), and where the form author added a line for an "admin" role.
Permissions dialog with Organization Owner role

Access control

If you'd like to have multiple classes of Form Builder users where some can edit, say, forms in the hr app, while others can edit forms in the sales app, see Access control for editing forms.

Explanatory Text TinyMCE configuration

[SINCE Orbeon Forms 2018.1]
To enable form authors to edit text with formatting shown by the Explanatory Text control, Form Builder uses the TinyMCE component. You can configure the TinyMCE by providing your own config as JSON as the value of the oxf.fb.tinymce.config property, with a syntax along these lines:
<property as="xs:string" name="oxf.fb.tinymce.config">
{
"mode" : "exact",
"language" : "en",
...
}
</property>

See also

Last modified 7mo ago