As mentioned in Form Sets and Form Definitions, FormDirector provides two classes, FormSetFile and FormDefinitionFile, which enable writing and reading attributes of the FormSet and FormDefinition classes to local files, for persistent storage. The files in local storage are called form set files and form definition files, based on the classes they represent. The Write and Read methods of each class are used to perform the reading and writing of these objects to persistent storage. The figure below demonstrates this relationship.

 

Capabilities of FormDirector and Persistent Storage

Writing

FormDirector is able to write to persistent storage attributes of the following: FormSets, FormDefinitions, Fields, TemplateImages; instructions for processing operations, and many other factors. All of this is done through the Write method of FormSetFile and the Write method of FormDefinitionFile.

Reading

Form set files and form definition files can be read by form assist using the Read method of FormSetFile and the Read method of FormDefinitionFile.

Editing

FormDirector is able to edit existing form set files and form definition files through sequential calls to read and write. Once read, the properties of the corresponding FormSet or FormDefinition object can be changed. If any of the persistent attributes have been changed, then the HasChanged property of the FormSet object or the HasChanged property of the FormDefinition object will have a value of true. If this value is true then the Write method of that object must be called in order to write the changed values to persistent storage.