Terminology
This page explains some terms which occur often in the Orbeon Forms documentation.
We make a distinction between:
- A Form definition is the description of a given form, including which sections, grids, and fields it contains, and all associated properties. You typically create a form definition using Form Builder. With Orbeon Forms, a form definition is encoded as an XML document using XHTML and XForms. Examples of form definitions include an "Address" form, or a "Claim" form.
- Form data is a set of data entered by a user via a form definition. For example, Hillary might have used the "Claim" form to file a claim. With Orbeon Forms, form data is encoded as an XML document.
In Form Builder, a form definition is identified by a two-level hierarchy of names:
- Application name: a name which allows grouping form together. The application name (or app name) can be, for example:
- a company name such as "orbeon" or "acme"
- a company entity such as "hr" or "sales" or "engineering"
- a project name such as "mercury" or "phoenix"
- Form name: a name which is local to an application name, for example "address" or "claim".
This two-level hierarchy allows for easy grouping of forms, and allows using a single instance of Form Builder to host distinct applications. See Multitenancy.
Application names and form names don't have to be human-readable, although it is generally convenient to make them human-readable.
Form data is identified by a three-level hierarchy which includes:
- the application name/form name couple that identifies the form definition
- plus a unique form data id or document id provided by Form Runner for each instance of form data
Form Runner and Form Builder have a few pages (or screens) which are referred to as follows:
- Form Builder
- Summary Page:
- This page is for form authors.
- It lists and allows searching the form definitions created with Form Builder. These might not have been published yet.
- It is also the starting point for the Form Builder Detail Page (see below).
- Detail Page:
- This page is for form authors.
- It is the actual Form Builder editor, which allows you to create, edit and publish form definitions.
- Form Runner
- Summary Page:
- This page is usually for end users.
- It lists and allows searching form data for a given form definition.
- It is also the starting point for the Form Runner Detail Page (see below).
- Detail Page:
- This page is usually for end users.
- This page allows creating, editing, viewing, saving, and submitting form data.
- Home Page:
- This page shows published form definitions.
- This page is useful for end users to see which form definitions they have access to.
- It can be a starting point to create new form data or to access the Form Runner Summary page.
- This page is also useful for administrators, who can set form availability, move them between servers, and more.
Last modified 1mo ago