Visualbuilder integration with our application

[dw_qservices]

Hi,

We just purchased the Enterprise Edition and we would very much like to integrate VisualBuilder better with our application. We are using Ruby as a back-end and using Neo4j as our database. Our back-end automatically generates datasources based on the contents of our database. We would like to be able to automatically populate the list of datasources by calling our back-end instead of manually adding datasources.
Our back-end also generates componentschema datasources which we already use with the portallayout. We would also like to populate the list of custom components with these datasources, instead of generating and maintaining separate XML files.
Finally we want to store the pages we generate in VisualBuilder in our database and wrap them in a palette node, so that we can drop them on the portallayout.

I have trouble finding proper documentation on how to do this.

I found that I can overwrite RPCManager.actionURL, so that we can call our own custom ruby code, but am unsure as to what kind of requests and responses VisualBuilder expects.

Please advice.

[Isomorphic]

Rather than VisualBuilder, we would recommend using Reify, which is basically a hosted version of VisualBuilder, except far far more powerful (Workflows, Users & Groups, sharing, test deployments and other major features). You can use Reify at Reify.com, or you can buy Reify OnSite, which is basically your own private version of Reify.com, inside your firewall, and easier to customize.

To get started, if you look at Reify for Developers, specifically "Uploading existing DataSources to Reify", you'll see that we've provided a tool that pull sample data from your live DataSources and put together a multi-DataSource file for upload to Reify.com.

Working with such sample DataSources is generally preferred so that you don't end up changing live data as you work on screen designs, and because it gives the tool a chance to explicitly handle changes to such DataSources instead of the DataSources just changing, or perhaps even vanishing, each time the tool starts (if the DB is different, for example). Similar concerns would apply to dynamic generation of Component Schema.

If you were dead set on dynamic generation however, you could either just overwrite the XML files that list DataSources and the palette when the tool starts up, or replace the static files with a servlet that returns the XML dynamically.

[dw_qservices]

Thank you for your quick reply. At the moment are not interested in Reify.
Actually we are only interested in some of the limited functionality of VisualBuilder, but a little more than what the mockup editor and form builder examples provide (https://smartclient.com/smartclient/...d=mockupEditor https://smartclient.com/smartclient/...id=formBuilder).
Most importantly the properties and events pane. The ability to drag and drop components and datasources to define screens. And the component tree to rearrange components on the screen. If I can reuse those functionalities from the VisualBuilder, I can do the rest myself.

[Isomorphic]

Hi guys, so to clarify your use case, from what we understand, you are not looking to use VisualBuilder (or Reify) to design your application, but you want your end users to have an interface something like Visual Builder, to customize your application.

If so, you should know that your Enterprise license, which includes the Portals & Tools framework, does not actually mean that you can ship Visual Builder as such with your application, that is, literally do "isc.VisualBuilder.create()" in your application code. That requires what we call a Reify OEM license, which then comes with a lot of documentation on all the configuration options, AutoChildren and override points in VisualBuilder/Reify.

Even without a Reify OEM license, you can use Portals & Tools to create an interface that is much richer than, for example, the Form Builder sample: Visual Builder's property editor is basically a DynamicForm bound to the Component Schema, with a change handler that applies the changed properties via setProperties() on the Component. And the "Events" tab is just another form that ultimately generates an <Action> definition in the screen.

Whether you want to stick with Portals & Tools and build your own basic version of Visual Builder, or upgrade to Reify OEM and ship the full tool, just specially configured, is up to you - depends on how close your requirements are to the full capabilities of Reify/VisualBuilder, and your appetite for doing the work yourself (and maintaining it).