alfresco-ng2-components/docs/user-guide/extensibility.md

Title, Added

Title	Added
Form extensibility and customization	v2.0.0

Form Extensibility and Customization

This page describes how you can customize ADF forms to your own specification.

Note: it is assumed you are familiar with Alfresco Process Services (powered by Activiti) form definition structure.

• How components and widgets are rendered on a Form
• Replacing default form widgets with custom components
• Replacing custom stencils with custom components

Contents

• How components and widgets are rendered on a Form
  • Component type resolvers
  • Default component mappings
• Replacing default form widgets with custom components
• Replacing custom stencils with custom components
  • Creating custom stencil
  • Creating custom widget
• See Also

How components and widgets are rendered on a Form

All form field editors (aka widgets) on a Form are rendered by means of FormFieldComponent that takes an instance of a FormFieldModel:

<form-field [field]="field"></form-field>

This component depends on FormRenderingService service to map FormFieldModel to UI component based on field type or metadata information.

Component type resolvers

FormRenderingService maps field types to corresponding instances exposing ComponentTypeResolver interface:

export interface ComponentTypeResolver {
    (field: FormFieldModel): Type<{}>;
}

Typically a ComponentTypeResolver is a function that takes FormFieldModel and returns corresponding component type. It can be either a predefined component type or a dynamically evaluated based on field properties and metadata.

Static component mapping

You can (re)map fields like in the following:

let customResolver: ComponentTypeResolver = () => CustomWidgetComponent;
formRenderingService.setComponentTypeResolver('text', customResolver, true);

or simply:

formRenderingService.setComponentTypeResolver('text', () => CustomWidgetComponent, true);

Dynamic component mapping

Alternatively your resolver may return different component types based on FormFieldModel state and condition:

let customResolver: ComponentTypeResolver = (field: FormFieldModel): Type<{}> => {
    if (field) {
        let params = field.params;
    }
    return UnknownWidgetComponent;
};
formRenderingService.setComponentTypeResolver('text', customResolver, true);

Default component mappings

Stencil Name	Field Type	Component Type
Text	text	TextWidgetComponent
Number	integer	NumberWidgetComponent
Multi-line text	multi-line-text	MultilineTextWidgetComponentComponent
Checkbox	boolean	CheckboxWidgetComponent
Dropdown	dropdown	DropdownWidgetComponent
Date	date	DateWidgetComponent
Amount	amount	AmountWidgetComponent
Radio buttons	radio-buttons	RadioButtonsWidgetComponent
Hyperlink	hyperlink	HyperlinkWidgetComponent
Display value	readonly	DisplayValueWidgetComponent
Display text	readonly-text	DisplayTextWidgetComponentComponent
Typeahead	typeahead	TypeaheadWidgetComponent
People	people	PeopleWidgetComponent
Group of people	functional-group	FunctionalGroupWidgetComponent
Dynamic table	dynamic-table	DynamicTableWidgetComponent
N/A	container	ContainerWidgetComponent (layout component)
Header	group	ContainerWidgetComponent
Attach	upload	AttachWidgetComponent or UploadWidgetComponent (based on metadata)
N/A	N/A	UnknownWidgetComponent

Replacing default form widgets with custom components

This is a short walkthrough on replacing a standard Text widget with a custom component for all APS forms rendered within <adf-form> component.

First let's create a simple APS form with Text widgets:

Every custom widget must inherit WidgetComponent class in order to function properly:

import { Component } from '@angular/core';
import { WidgetComponent } from '@alfresco/adf-core';

@Component({
    selector: 'custom-editor',
    template: `
        <div style="color: red">Look, I'm a custom editor!</div>
    `
})
export class CustomEditorComponent extends WidgetComponent {}

Now you will need to add it to the application module or any custom module that is imported into the application one:

import { NgModule } from '@angular/core';
import { CustomEditorComponent } from './custom-editor.component';

@NgModule({
    declarations: [ CustomEditorComponent ],
    exports: [ CustomEditorComponent ],
    entryComponents: [ CustomEditorComponent ]
})
export class CustomEditorsModule {}

Every custom widget should be added into all three module collections: declarations, exports and entryComponents.

If you decided to store custom widgets in a separate dedicated module (and optionally as separate redistributable library) don't forget to import it into your main application one:

@NgModule({
    imports: [
        // ...
        CustomEditorsModule
        // ...
    ],
    providers: [],
    bootstrap: [ AppComponent ]
})
export class AppModule {}

Now you can import FormRenderingService in any of your Views and override default mapping similar to the following:

import { Component } from '@angular/core';
import { CustomEditorComponent } from './custom-editor.component';

@Component({...})
export class MyView {

    constructor(formRenderingService: FormRenderingService) {
        formRenderingService.setComponentTypeResolver('text', () => CustomEditorComponent, true);
    }

}

At runtime it should look similar to the following:

Replacing custom stencils with custom components

This is a short walkthrough on rendering custom APS stencils by means of custom Angular components.

Creating custom stencil

First let's create a basic stencil and call it Custom Stencil 01:

Note the internal identifier value as it will become a field type value when corresponding form is rendered.

Next put some simple html layout for Formruntime template and Formeditor template fields:

<div style="color: blue">Custom activiti stencil</div>

Now you are ready to design a test form based on your custom stencil:

Once wired with a new task it should look like the following within APS web application:

Creating custom widget

If you load previously created task into ADF <adf-form> component you will see something like the following:

Let's create an Angular component to render missing content:

import { Component } from '@angular/core';
import { WidgetComponent } from '@alfresco/adf-core';

@Component({
    selector: 'custom-stencil-01',
    template: `<div style="color: green">ADF version of custom Activiti stencil</div>`
})
export class CustomStencil01 extends WidgetComponent {}

Put it inside custom module:

import { NgModule } from '@angular/core';
import { CustomStencil01 } from './custom-stencil-01.component';

@NgModule({
    declarations: [ CustomStencil01 ],
    exports: [ CustomStencil01 ],
    entryComponents: [ CustomStencil01 ]
})
export class CustomEditorsModule {}

And import into your Application Module

@NgModule({
    imports: [
        // ...
        CustomEditorsModule
        // ...
    ],
    providers: [],
    bootstrap: [ AppComponent ]
})
export class AppModule {}

Now you can import FormRenderingService in any of your Views and provide new mapping:

import { Component } from '@angular/core';
import { CustomStencil01 } from './custom-stencil-01.component';

@Component({...})
export class MyView {

    constructor(formRenderingService: FormRenderingService) {
        formRenderingService.setComponentTypeResolver('custom_stencil_01', () => CustomStencil01, true);
    }

}

At runtime you should now see your custom Angular component rendered in place of the stencils:

See Also

• Form field model
• Form rendering service
• Form component
• Widget component