Add buttons
Input and output - Demonstration

In the following demonstration, the MForm form interacts with a TextBox control, which is the source of form data input, and the dump for xml data output. Input and output work on button pressing.

To make the example work, the ValidateRequest property of the page is set to false. Otherwise, the TextBox could not contain xml data. It is not advised to use such a code in real-life applications.

XML input
 
Simple Test
Leaf Element
Branch Element
leaf Attribute
XML output 

        

    

    



                
            

        

        

            

	
Input and output - Description



            

                
    

        What is important, when using MForm controls, is that they do not modify the input
        provided. Instead, the output is generated as a new XmlDocument.
    

    

        In most of the scenarios, the input xml will be provided to the Root
        control and the output will be taken from there. The input can be set using the
        DataSource or DataSourceId properties. See
        here
        for more details.
    

    

        

	
Providing input



        

            The content of the MForm is preserved on PostBack. It is not needed to load input
            xml to MForm on each page load. In case the DataSource property is
            set on Postback, it clears the previous PostBack data.
        

        

            

                It is planned to have all the OffspringItem controls accepting the
                DataSource. This would make it possible to create MForm out of more
                than one data source. Each OffspringItem already contains the property
                DataSource, which expects any IXPathNavigable. However
                currently the functionality is limited to the initial page run (setting data sources
                for inner items will not work on PostBack)

        

    

    

        

	
Manipulating output



        

            The output can be taken from the Root control using the OutputXml
            and OutputXmlWithLeftNodes properties.
        

        

            However, one can get the output fron an of OffspringItem controls,
            using the GetOutputXml and GetOutputXmlWithLeftNodes extension
            methods.