Terminology

Rationale

This page explains some terms which occur often in the Orbeon Forms documentation.

Form definitions and form data

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.

Application name and form name

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", "foobar"
  • 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.

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

Summary Page, Detail Page and Home Page

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.
      • See Form Runner Home Page for more.

See also The Form Builder summary page and Form Runner home page.