LayoutService

Provides the ability to obtain the XML layout for a single domain object or for all domain objects.

API

LayoutService.java

interface LayoutService {
  String toXml(Class<?> domainClass, LayoutExportStyle style)     (1)
  byte[] toZip(LayoutExportStyle style)     (2)
  String toMenuBarsXml(MenuBarsService.Type type)     (3)
}

1	toXml(Class, LayoutExportStyle) Obtains the serialized XML form of the layout (grid) for the specified domain class.
2	toZip(LayoutExportStyle) Obtains a zip file of the serialized XML of the layouts (grids) of all domain entities and view models.
3	toMenuBarsXml(MenuBarsService_Type) Obtains the serialized XML form of the menu bars layout ( MenuBarsService ).

Members

toXml(Class, LayoutExportStyle)

Obtains the serialized XML form of the layout (grid) for the specified domain class.

toZip(LayoutExportStyle)

Obtains a zip file of the serialized XML of the layouts (grids) of all domain entities and view models.

toMenuBarsXml(MenuBarsService_Type)

Obtains the serialized XML form of the menu bars layout ( MenuBarsService ).

Implementation

The framework provides a default implementation, o.a.i.core.metamodel.services.layout.LayoutServiceDefault.

The service’s functionality is exposed in the UI through a mixin (per object) and a menu action (for all objects):

the Object mixin provides the ability to download the XML layout for any domain object (entity or view model).
the LayoutServiceMenu provides the ability to download all XML layouts as a single ZIP file (in any of the three styles).

The XML can then be copied into the codebase of the application, and annotations in the domain classes removed as desired.

Styles

Each of these actions take as a parameter an instance of Style.

The CURRENT style corresponds to the layout already loaded for the domain class, typically from an already persisted layout.xml file. The other three styles allow the developer to choose how much metadata is to be specified in the XML, and how much (if any) will be obtained elsewhere, typically from annotations in the metamodel. The table below summarises the choices:

Table 1. Styles
Style	@ActionLayout#sequence, @PropertyLayout#sequence, @CollectionLayout#sequence	@ActionLayout#fieldSetId, @PropertyLayout#fieldSetId
`COMPLETE`	serialized as XML	serialized as XML
`MINIMAL`	not in the XML	not in the XML

As a developer, you therefore have a choice as to how you provide the metadata required for customised layouts:

if you want all layout metadata to be read from the .layout.xml file, then download the "complete" version, and copy the file alongside the domain class.

You can then remove all @ActionLayout, @PropertyLayout and @CollectionLayout annotations from the source code of the domain class.

if you want to use layout XML file ONLY to describe the grid, then download the "minimal" version.

The grid regions will be empty in this version, and the framework will use the @ActionLayout, @PropertyLayout and @CollectionLayout annotations to bind object members to those regions, and to specify their order within those regions.