View source for Changing forms programtically

== Changing forms programmatically ==

The Protege API provides access also to the forms configuration. An application can change programmatically the display of a class or an instance the same way in which it is changed in the Forms tab in the Protege UI.


=== Replacing the slot widget for a class ===

A class display is made up of slot widgets. For each slot type, there is a default slot widget used to display the value of the slot. For example, slot of type String and cardinality single has as a default slot widget, the TextFieldWidget.

An application can replace the widget used to display a slot on a class form. The following code uses the Newspaper project and replaces the slot widget for slot <code>other_information</code> for class <code>Editor</code> from <code>TextAreaWidget</code> to <code>TextFieldWidget>.

<code><pre>
//the class for which the form needs to be customized
Cls editorCls = kb.getCls("Editor");

FormWidget formWidget = (FormWidget) kb.getProject().getDesignTimeClsWidget(editorCls);

//slot to customize
Slot testSlot = kb.getSlot("other_information");

SlotWidget sw = formWidget.getSlotWidget(testSlot);

formWidget.replaceWidget(testSlot, "edu.stanford.smi.protege.widget.TextFieldWidget");

//optional - set the label of the slot widget		
sw.setLabel("MyLabel");

//inform the UI that the class form has been customized
formWidget.getDescriptor().setDirectlyCustomizedByUser(true);
</pre></code>


=== Hiding a slot widget from the class display ===

Hiding a slot widget is done by replacing the slot widget with null. So, in the code from above the line containing the <code>replaceWidget</code> call should be replaced with the following line:

<code><pre>
formWidget.replaceWidget(testSlot, null);
</pre></code>

[[Category:Protege developer documentation]]