Orbeon Forms 2021.1.6 PE

 We just published the Orbeon Forms 2021.1.6 PE maintenance release!

For details, see the release notes.

You can download the latest version of Orbeon Forms from the downloads page.

We hope you enjoy this release!

Improving the send action with multipart support

Sending data with Orbeon Forms

Orbeon Forms features simple processes, which combine actions and conditions, and which are usually associated with buttons at the bottom of a form. One of these actions is the send action, which allows sending form data in XML and PDF formats, in particular, using HTTP, to a service endpoint.

However, each send action can only send a single file. This is limiting especially because form data can come with attachments, added to a form through the use of one of the Attachment controls, and it would be useful to be able to send out those attachments alongside the data.

Adding multipart support

So with Orbeon Forms 2022.1, we are enhancing the send action with the ability to send multiple items to a service endpoint in a single HTTP request using a so-called multipart request format. This allows sending XML data with its attachment, and even to add a PDF file or an Excel export to that. You select the content to send using tokens. For example the following sends the XML data, its attachments if any, and the dynamically-generated PDF file:

send(
    uri     = "https://httpbin.org/anything",
    method  = "POST",
    content = "xml attachments pdf"
)

The request body might look like this:

--CHZ6Pogx-A1VVuDgU22pcJASumg8S0CrOZhooqlw
Content-Disposition: form-data
Content-Type: application/xml; charset=UTF-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<form xmlns:fr="http://orbeon.org/oxf/xml/form-runner" fr:data-format-version="4.0.0">
    <my-main-section>
        <first-name>Bob</first-name>
        <pet-picture filename="cat.jpg" mediatype="image/jpeg" size="56803">cid:94b0e57e87fa8f42cb494fdc2808f58c5b31be41</pet-picture>
    </my-main-section>
</form>
--CHZ6Pogx-A1VVuDgU22pcJASumg8S0CrOZhooqlw
Content-ID: <94b0e57e87fa8f42cb494fdc2808f58c5b31be41>
Content-Disposition: attachment; filename*=UTF-8''cat.jpg
Content-Type: image/jpeg
Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary

...binary image content here...
--CHZ6Pogx-A1VVuDgU22pcJASumg8S0CrOZhooqlw
Content-ID: <7a361b305064d3a95511da35a8c53edbabe3af8b>
Content-Disposition: attachment; filename*=UTF-8''My%20demo%20multipart%20form%20-%20ce85cc4b7be9975d.pdf
Content-Type: application/pdf
Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary

...binary PDF content here...

--CHZ6Pogx-A1VVuDgU22pcJASumg8S0CrOZhooqlw--

The multipart format is automatically selected on the wire if more than one item needs to be sent. On the receiving side, a lot of software can decode a multipart request and extract the individual parts.

For more details, see the documentation.

We hope you will find this Orbeon Forms 2022.1 feature useful!

Orbeon Forms 2021.1.5 PE

We just published the Orbeon Forms 2021.1.5 PE maintenance release!

For details, see the release notes.

You can download the latest version of Orbeon Forms from the downloads page.

We hope you enjoy this release!

Improved simple data migration

What is simple data migration

Orbeon Forms 2018.2 introduced Simple Data Migration (see also the original blog post). This feature allows the form author to make changes to a published form, including adding and removing form fields, grids, and sections, without creating a new form version.

New enhancements

While Simple Data Migration is very useful, we realized that it needed improvement. Specifically, there is no reason that you shouldn’t be able to also move form controls in a form and still preserve data compatibility.

So we have done just that, and with Orbeon Forms 2022.1, you can move form controls within the form as long as they remain within the same nesting of repeated content, republish the form over the existing version, and things will just work. For example:

• Move controls at the top-level of a form, even across grids and sections.
• Move controls within a given level of repeated grids or repeated sections, even across nested grids.

Simply moving a form control this way allows you to reorganize your form while keeping access to existing data.

Moving a control across section boundaries

For more information, see also the documentation.

We hope you will find this Orbeon Forms 2022.1 feature useful.

Orbeon Forms 2021.1.4 PE

We just published the Orbeon Forms 2021.1.4 PE maintenance release!

For details, see the release notes.

You can download the latest version of Orbeon Forms from the downloads page.

We hope you enjoy this release!

Quickly navigate to fields in large forms

When editing a form in Form Builder, you might want to make a change to a certain field, but, with large forms, just locating the field in the form might turn out to be more time consuming than you'd like it to be. If you know the label for the field you're looking for, and all the sections are opened in Form Builder, you can use your browser's search feature (ctrl-f or cmd-f). But if you only know the field's name, for instance because you saw it referenced in a formula, or you keep many sections closed, the browser's search won't help.

For this, Orbeon Forms 2021.1 introduces a new feature: Search Controls, which you access with keyboard the shortcut ctrl-j on Windows, Linux, or ChromeOS, and cmd-j on macOS or iPadOS. After you select a field from the dropdown, the dialog will close, the browser will scroll up or down to the field you selected, and if the field was in a closed section, then Form Builder will open that section.

You can also check the Open Settings Dialog checkbox if in addition to navigating to the field you'd like Form Builder to directly open the Control Settings dialog for that field. If opening the Control Settings dialog is what you do every time you navigate to a field, you can check that box, it will stay checked, and will save you from having to do an additional click every time you navigate to a field.

For more on this feature, see Quick control search in the documentation.

Orbeon Forms 2021.1.3 PE

We just released the Orbeon Forms 2021.1.3 PE maintenance release!

For details, see the release notes.

You can download the latest version of Orbeon Forms from the downloads page.

We hope you enjoy this release!