Advanced Lesson 1: Creating Forms with the XFT Form Layout Tool
XFT Forms
Although you have a lot of control over the appearance and behavior of XMetaL Author using CSS properties and scripts, there are times when you may want to create a form for the easy entry of data. There are many examples of times when you would want to do this, but let's consider the Journalist sample included with XMetaL Author. There are some XFT forms included as part of this sample, so let's look at one of them now:
  1. Open XMetaL Author.
  2. Click File > New.
  3. Click the Journalist tab and select Article. A new document is created based on the Journalist schema.
  4. If you are not already in Tags On View, switch to it now.
  5. If it is not already visible, show the Element List, by clicking View > Element List.
  6. Enter any title for the document, and move to the cursor to after the </Title> element tag.
  7. From the Element List, click the Author element, then click Apply.
You are now looking at an inline XFT form which is embedded in the Article document. Note how there are form controls to enter data. You could also create forms that are modal, form containing buttons, text boxes, lines, etc. If you wish, enter some author information in the XFT Author form and save the document.
Advanced Lessons 1 and 2 discuss how to create forms such as the Author form.
This lesson will take about 20 minutes to complete.
The XFT Form Layout Tool
You can use the XMetaL Forms Toolkit (XFT) to create your own forms that can be run from within XMetaL either as modal dialog boxes or embedded within a document. In addition, you can create forms that are bound to XML content, such as elements and attributes, and apply your organization's business logic via scripting.
Before you begin creating your own forms, you should familiarize yourself with the XMetaL Form Layout Editor.
To create a form:
  1. Open a Windows Explorer window and navigate to the folder that contains the XMetaL Form Layout Tool executable file ({install path}\Blast Radius\XMetaL 4.5\Developer\Bin).
  2. Double-click XFLayout.exe. The Form Layout Tool opens.
    If it is installed, XMetaL Author opens at the same time. This is so that you can quickly and easily debug your forms using XMetaL Author.
  3. Click File > New. A dialog box opens asking which scripting language you want to use.
  4. Select the language you want to use from the list, and click OK. A blank form appears.
    You are now ready to start designing the form.
    Note: If, instead of following the above instructions, you started the XFT Form Layout Tool from XMetaL Developer, you must specify which scripting language to start the Form Editor with in the Add New Item dialog.
The Object Bar
At this point, examine the object bar. It looks like this:
It contains all of the objects that you can use on your XFT form. For more information about individual objects (including their available properties and methods), see The Object Bar in the reference section of the Customization Guide that accompanies XMetaL Developer.
To put a control on your form, click and hold any object on the object bar, and drag it onto the form. In this example, a combo box was dragged from the object bar onto the form:
Try dragging different objects onto the form. Once objects are on the form, you can resize them and move them to other locations. By adding and arranging objects, you can design and lay out the form.
The Property Sheet
Each object has its own set of properties. The Form Layout Tool shown in Step 3 (above) displays the property sheet, although property sheets may not always be visible.
Show the property sheet (if it is not already shown):
  1. Right-click the object whose properties you want to display or edit.
  2. On the menu that appears, click Object Properties.
(To hide the property sheet, follow the same steps.)
The property sheet displays the properties for only the selected object. To display the properties for another object, select that object first. Below is a sample property sheet for a text object:
To edit the properties for an object:
  1. If it is not already visible, display the property sheet.
  2. Scroll through the list of properties to find the one(s) you want to edit.
  3. Click in the text area to the right of the name of the property you want to edit.
  4. Enter the new value.
If you want to, you can set the tab order for controls: Click Layout > Objects. The Object Sheet (Tab Order) dialog box appears. From this dialog box you can control the tab order of objects.
Object events
Each object always has a set of events. The events allow you to define specialized behavior for an object using script. Event sheets are not visible by default.
Show the event scripting window (if it is not already shown):
  1. Right-click the object for which you want to display or edit the events.
  2. On the context menu that appears, click Object Scripting.
Advanced Advanced
(To hide the event scripting window, follow the same steps.)
Below is the event scripting window for a combo box object:
Edit the event for an object:
  1. If it is not already visible, show the event scripting window.
  2. Scroll through the list of events to find the one(s) for which you want to write a script.
  3. Enter the script for the chosen event.
Once you have created a form, added objects to it, and edited the properties for the objects, you must save your form. Form name extensions default to .xft. It is important to remember where you save your forms, because you will need to know the location of them when it comes time to integrate the forms into XMetaL.
  1. Click File > Save.
  2. Enter the folder and filename for your form.
    Note: XFT forms should be saved in the ...\Program Files\Blast Radius\XMetaL 4.5\Author\Forms subfolder.
  3. Click OK.
Continue with the next lesson: Binding XFT Forms to XML content...
Last modified: Friday, May 21, 2004 3:18:46 PM