I'm trying to figure out the best way to handle a requirement I have for an Orchard module I'm building.
I have a ContentPart that has a few fields. One field is a ContentPicker that allows for multiple items to be associated to the part. The rest are descriptive information.
The issue I have is that I actually need to be able to include more than one of this ContentPart into a ContentType. I need to create a ContentType that has exactly 3 of this part.
Should I be making this into a field instead of a part? Is it even possible to have a ContentField that has other fields in it?
Or, should I somehow use all the same models and data structures, but somehow define it as 3 distinct parts?
Just wondering what the best practice to do something like this would be.
You can only have one part of each kind on a given type. You can't have fields that have other fields in it (instead - take an existing field and extend it with custom stuff).
As I understand, the actual problem is "how to make groups of fields with some metadata for each group", right? If so, there are a few approaches to solve the problem:
Create a custom field based on Content Picker (basically - take existing Content Picker and extend it with your metadata) and use this without the need for a separate part
Create one part to hold only the metadata for each field attached to it and attach 1 or more fields to it
Create 3 distinct parts. Parts should be thought of as extensions that add some unique features to an item. If you think it's logically ok to have 3 parts then go for it.
Related
I created a basic OOTB document library to store Word and PDF files. I have been tasked to also create a few columns to store some basic metadata about the uploaded documents, for example: AuthorFirstName, AuthorLastName, and a column that lists "topics" discussed in the document.
While I am generally familiar with most Document Library settings, and creating columns, I am seeking information on what column datatype might work best for "topics". In most situations, one uploaded document would have 1-4 topics.
I would rather the datatype not be a single line of text datatype, as I would rather not ask the user to separate the different values (topics) using a delimiter such as a comma or semicolon. I would like to offer users the option to sort or filter in the SharePoint views.
There also seem to be some limitations with the Choice datatype.
While Choice fields seem to support Fill-In Values, when a choice is not pre-populated, they only seem to allow 1 fill-in. I would like the user to able to use a repeating-table-like interface to add a topic, and click an "add" button, and repeat, and so on.
I think in your scenario the best approach would be using managed metadata feature (http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint-help/introduction-to-managed-metadata-HA102832521.aspx). It allows you to sort/filter library items, allows users to add new terms into metadata storage, etc.
Using a Lookup field to a custom List is something worth considering. The main advantage is that your data choices are stored separately from the main list and are easier to track and manage. The disadvantage is that you cannot easily have the user add a fill-in option as you desire. You would have to have a link from the library or the upload form to the options list where they would enter a new option separately from tagging it on the document.
Managed metadata is certainly an option as well, but it requires more overhead and sorting/filtering on that is a little trickier. Using a Lookup column is simple, although it does not meet all of your needs.
In a JSF page I have to display the data from an entity.
This entity has some int fields which cannot be displayed directly but need to be translated into a descriptive string.
Between them some can have a limited number of values, others have lots of possible values (such as a wordlwide Country_ID) and deserve a table on the Db with the association (ID, description).
This latter case can easily be solved navigating via relationship from the original entity to the entity corresponding to the dictionary table (ID, description) but I don't want to introduce new entities just to solve translations form ID to description.
Besides another integer field has special needs: the hundred thousand number should be changed with a letter according to a rule such as 100015 -> A00015, 301023 -> C01023.
Initially I put the translation code inside the entity itself but I know the great limits and drawbacks of this solution.
Then I created a singletone (EntityTranslator) with all the methods to translate the different fields. For cases where the field values are a lot I put them inside a table which is loaded from the singletone and transformed in a TreeMap, otherwise the descriptions are in arrays inside the class.
In the ManagedBean I wrote a getter for EntityTranslator and inside the jsf I use quite long el statements like the following:
#{myManagedBean.entityTranslator.translateCountryID(myManagedBean.selectedEntity.countryID)}
I think the problem is quite general and I'm looking for a standard way to solve it but, as already stated, I don't want to create new 'stupid' entities only to associate an ID to a description, I think it is overkill.
Another possibility is the use of converters Object(Integer) <-> String but I'm more comfortable in having all the translation needs for an Entity inside the same class.
Your question boils down to the following simple line:
How can I display a field different from id of my entity in my view and how can I morph an integer field into something more meaningful.
The answer is that it depends on a situation.
If you solely want to input/output data, you don't need id at all apart from the possible view parameter like ?id=12345. In this case you can input/output anything you want in your view: the id is always there.
If you want to create a new entity most possibly you have a way of generating ids via JPA, or database, or elsehow besides the direct input from the user. In this situation you don't need to mess with ids as well.
If you want to use information on other entities like show user a dropdown box with e.g. a list of countries, you always have the option to separate label (let it be name) and value (let it be id), or even have a unique not null column containing the country name in your database table that will serve as a natural identifier. If you'd like to get data from the user using an input text field you always can create a converter that will do the job of transforming user input strings to actual entity objects.
Regarding the transformation of your integers, you've actually got several choices: the first one is to attach a converter for these fields that will roughly do 301023 -> C01023 and C01023 -> 301023 transformations, the second one is to write a custom EL function and the third one is to prepare the right model beforehand / do the transformations on-the-fly.
I have an odd issue.
I have client that wants a sharepoint list what is populated from a WCFService. That part is working quite well.
I have a bdcmodel that is mapping the WCF data and I can create an external list from the bdcmodel as well so that is working fine.
The issue I have is that one of the properties in the model is actually a collection of entities called Attributes. The objects in this collection simply have 2 properties Name and Value so really they are just a key value pair.
The client wants to see the list of attributes of the parent entity in the external list. So there would be an Attributes column and within that column would be the list of attributes for each parent object.
Is there even a way to do this? I am looking into Custom Field Types, but it seems like these are really intended to be singular values.
How would I create a list within and external list?
Any help anyone can give would be great even if its just to tell me that there really isn't a stable way to do this so I can go back to the client and tell them we will need to build a custom list to support this because the OOB external list and custom fields and custom field types won't support this kind of nested listing.
I decided to set up the custom field as a string and when I get my collection in from the BdcModel I am serializing it to JSON and then passing it to the field. When the field is viewed in display, edit or new I have overridden the FieldRenderingControl and I am tiling the collection out that way.
I am designing an application that will display dynamically-generated forms to the user who will then enter values into the form fields and submit those values for persistence. The form represents an employee evaluation.
One use case allows an administrator (from HR) to define the form fields. They should be able to create a new form, add/remove fields from a form and mark a form as 'deleted'.
The second use case is when a manager views the form and enters values into the form fields for a specific employee. They should be able to save the values at any time and recall the saved values when viewing the form again for the same employee.
Finally, when the manager is satisfied with the values they've entered for that employee, they can 'submit' the form data which persists the flattened data into the data warehouse for reporting purposes. When this is done, the 'working' copy of the data is removed so the form will display empty the next time they view it for that employee.
I am not concerned with the front-end at this point and working on the back-end service application that sits between the client and the data store. The application must provide a course-grained interface for all of the behavior required.
My question is how many aggregate roots do I actually have (and from that, how many repositories, etc)? Do I separate the form definition from the form data even though I need both when displaying the form to the user?
I see two main entities, 'EmployeeEvaluationSchema' and 'EmployeeEvaluation'. The 'EmployeeEvaluationSchema' entity would have a collection of 'FieldDefinition' value objects which would contain the properties that define a field, the most basic being the name of the field. The 'EmployeeEvaluation' entity would have a collection of 'FieldValue' value objects which contain the values for each field from the definition. In the simplest case, it would have a field name and value property. Next, the 'EmployeeEvaluation' could have a reference to 'EmployeeEvaluationSchema' to specify which definition the particular evaluation is based on. This can also be used to enforce the form definition in each evaluation. You would have two repositories - one for each entity. If you were to use an ORM such as NHibernate, then when you retrieve a 'EmployeeEvaluation' entity, the associated 'EmployeeEvaluationSchema' would also be retrieved even though there is a dedicated repository for it.
From your description it sounds like your objects don't have any behavior and are simple DTOs. If that is the case maybe you should not bother doing DDD. Can you imagine your entities without having getters? There are better ways to do CRUDish application than DDD. Again this is only valid if your "domain" does not have relevant behavior.
I'm in the middle of trying to copy a custom content type from one web to another. I've googled around and found some examples that use FieldLinks and Fields. I'm kind of lost as to which one to use, since when I get the FieldLinks from my source web, I get 3 fields; while retrieving from Fields only returned me 2 fields... the custom field is missing. I'm pretty darn sure that I've added the fields at the proper level since I did it via the interface. But when retrieving it using code... the numbers just don't add up.
So besides from that strange problem, I want to know what is the difference between FieldLinks and Fields, and when dealing with them in Content Types (programmatically) which one should I use?
Thanks.
SPFields are fields themselves, while SPFieldLinks are references to the fields. This is a good read that will explain things in detail. In general practice, it is safer to use SPFieldLinks when you are working on the actual content type definition. However, I'll give a quick summary here.
Lists and Webs contain the actual fields with field data. A content type, on the other hand, only holds Field Reference, which simply points at the corresponding field in the list or web. This gets a bit confusing, because content types have both an SPFieldLinkCollection and an SPFieldCollection.
The SPFieldLinkCollection is used in the actual definition of the content type, and is what you would want to use in your situation of copying a content type from one web to another. SPFieldLinks correspond to the actual elements in the XML Schema for a content type.
Comparatively, when you call on a content type's SPFieldCollection and retrieve a Field from it, what is actually happening is that the content type is checking the corresponding field reference, and then looking up in the list/web to get the actual field. Basically, think of the SPFieldCollection in the same way a lookup works: it is worthless without both the lookup value and the lookup source.