About Data Panels in JClient

A data browsing panel contains controls through which the user can view and edit data. Thus, it has a set of controls declared and instantiated as fields. The data browsing panel receives its panel binding from the parent frame or panel (through a setBindingContext() call):

panel.setBindingContext(panelBinding.getBindingContext());

After the parent container creates the data browsing panel and its panel binding, jbInit() is called. In the jbInit() method, the control is bound to attributes. Examine the following code:

textFieldDeptName.setDocument((Document)panelBinding.bindUIControl("DepartmentName", "mDepartmentName"));

In the above code line, mDepartmentName is a JTextField component that is bound to the DepartmentName attribute of the underlying business service, where the identifier DepartmentName is a reference to a definition in the UIModel.xml file (the file defines the binding container). The binding container keeps a list of iterator bindings. Each iterator binding specifies the view object instance and (optionally) the row set iterator.

Thus, at runtime when setDocument() is called, JClient looks for a control binding by the specified name (DepartmentName ). If one is found in the binding context for the form, JClient uses that control binding&rsquos associated iterator binding to access the value.