Sure thing, would you mind creating it as a feature request at http://issues.umbraco.org/issues/CON

Great, thanks!

Thanks, I'll assign this to version 4.2 (the next upcoming version)

Do you know when this is due for release?

Just looking in the code but unsure where to place the event, so you want to have it before the records get retrieved (so the place where they get retrieved is the records viewer)

So instead of fetching the records from the forms storage you want to bypass that and return data from a custom source (and this is for use in the entries viewer)

Wouldn't it be easier to just create your own entries viewer? And hook into the menu rendering to show your own viewer instead of the default one

Hook into menu rendering example is on the bottom of this page https://our.umbraco.org/documentation/Extending-Umbraco/Section-Trees/trees-v7

OK I've added the following code but the event is not firing when I load the form:

class EventHandlers : ApplicationEventHandler
{
    protected override void ApplicationStarted(UmbracoApplicationBase umbracoApplication, ApplicationContext applicationContext)
    {
        TreeControllerBase.MenuRendering += TreeControllerBase_MenuRendering;
        base.ApplicationStarted(umbracoApplication, applicationContext);
    }

    void TreeControllerBase_MenuRendering(TreeControllerBase sender, MenuRenderingEventArgs e)
    {

    }
 }

OK I can see the TreeNodesRendering event fired when you are in the back office. How do I create my own records viewer and hook this in? Will I be able to extend the existing one? Can you please provide more detailed code example.

You can basically create your own angularjs view and controller, and point to that from your menu option

Will get some code snippets together

Ok this is the code snippet that will update the entries node to go to a custom view

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Web;
using Umbraco.Core;
using Umbraco.Web.Models.Trees;
using Umbraco.Web.Trees;

namespace SupportFormsCustomEntriesViewer
{
public class Events: ApplicationEventHandler
{

    protected override void ApplicationStarted(UmbracoApplicationBase umbracoApplication, ApplicationContext applicationContext)
    {


        TreeControllerBase.TreeNodesRendering += TreeControllerBase_TreeNodesRendering;
    }

    void TreeControllerBase_TreeNodesRendering(TreeControllerBase sender, TreeNodesRenderingEventArgs e)
    {
        if (sender.TreeAlias == "form" && e.Nodes.Count == 2)
        {
            var formId = e.QueryStrings.Single(qs => qs.Key == "id").Value;
            var entriesNode = e.Nodes.Single(node => node.Name.StartsWith("Entries"));
            entriesNode.RoutePath = "forms/form/customentries/" + formId.ToString();

        }
    }


}
}

so then it's a matter of creating the file /App_Plugins/UmbracoForms/backoffice/form/customentries.html and implementing your own records viewer

Then you'll need to inject a angularjs controller, and you'll also need an api controller that will feed the data to the controller, will also get you some sample code of that

OK thanks for that. But this is just implementing a new back office entries viewer. I need the actual form that the user of my website sees to display the correct data that comes from an external source. Umbraco Forms does not currently support this and changes to the external data are not picked up and there is no way for me to retrieve them.

i.e. when they navigate to: www.mywebsite.com/myform?recordid=1

I have two options:

1. Hook into a synchronous event before any records are received and use the RecordService to update the records from the external source.
2. Hook into the an event the retrieves the Records and return the correct data then.

If you can help me implement either of these it would be greatly appreciated!

Ok I understand better now, 2 is probably the easiest solution, will look into that.

If you are still interested in how you can return your own entries viewer here are the bits

Angularjs controller:

angular.module("umbraco").controller("SupportFormsCustomEntriesViewer.EntriesController",
function ($scope, $routeParams, recordResource, formResource, dialogService, editorState, $http) {
    formResource.getByGuid($routeParams.id)
    .then(function (response) {
        $scope.form = response.data;

        $http.get("backoffice/Custom/EntriesApi/GetAllEntries?formid=" + $scope.form.id)
            .then(function (res) {
                $scope.entries = res.data;
            });

        $scope.loaded = true;
    });

});

angujarjs view:

<div novalidate name="contentForm"
 ng-controller="SupportFormsCustomEntriesViewer.EntriesController"
 ng-show="loaded">

<umb-panel>
    <umb-header>
        <div class="span12">
            <h1>{{form.name}} form entries</h1>
        </div>
    </umb-header>
    <div class="umb-panel-body umb-scrollable row-fluid umb-forms-entries">

        {{entries | json}}
    </div>
</umb-panel>

api controller that returns the record data:

[PluginController("Custom")]
public class EntriesApiController : UmbracoAuthorizedJsonController  
{
    Entry[] entries = new Entry[] 
    { 
        new Entry { Id = 1, Name = "Tomato Soup", Category = "Groceries", Price = 1 }, 
        new Entry { Id = 2, Name = "Yo-yo", Category = "Toys", Price = 3.75M }, 
        new Entry { Id = 3, Name = "Hammer", Category = "Hardware", Price = 16.99M } 
    };

    public IEnumerable<Entry> GetAllEntries(string formId)
    {
        return entries;

    }

    public Entry GetEntryById(int id)
    {
        var entry = entries.FirstOrDefault((p) => p.Id == id);
        if (entry == null)
        {
            throw new HttpResponseException(HttpStatusCode.NotFound);
        }
        return entry;
    }

}

Entry model

public class Entry
{
    public int Id { get; set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }
    public string Category { get; set; }
    public decimal Price { get; set; }
}

package manifest

{
"javascript": [
"~/App_Plugins/Custom/entries.controller.js"
]
}

Cheers Tim. Look forward to your response!

Ok added the event RecordFetching on Umbraco.Forms.Data.Storage.RecordStorage

You can upgrade to the latest nightly build to make use of it http://nightly.umbraco.org/UmbracoForms/nightlies/UmbracoForms.Files.4.2.0-WIP.Build.65.zip

That works fine for the nightly build :)

any idea when the 4.2.0 build will be officially released? (including nuget)

is working on a reply...