Enable the visual form builder to recognize external refs

[jamieleecho]

The visual form builder currently is able to interpret internal refs, but not external refs. Adding external refs would allow developers to create libraries of reusable components corresponding to standardized data structures. This could be a boon for biological contexts because common biological components (NCBI organisms or something) can be defined in a common library and reused from form to form.

For Ginkgo, this would allow us to integrate the form builder to the Standardized Schema Library that we are building out for Servicely.

Here's what i mean:
Link to demo of form builder: https://ginkgobioworks.github.io/react-json-schema-form-builder/

The form builder supports building common components, but these get defined as part of the JSON schema itself:

The definition is put directly into the definitions section of the JSON Schema

Which can be referenced in the main form builder:

See:

    newInput1: {
      '$ref': '#/definitions/commonComponent1',
      title: 'New Input 1',
      description: ''
    }

But if i wanted to $ref an external schema:

See:

  properties: {
    newInput1: {
      '$ref': 'http://servicely/named/request/input/sample',
      title: 'New Input 1',
      description: ''
    }

JSON Schema Form doesn't know what to do:

image.png

What would be really useful is to be able to pass in a library of named schema fragments (so schema fragments that have an $id field) into the constructor of the component and then have the form builder be able to reference these schema fragments without the schema fragment actually needing to be in the schema's definition section

[qw4n7y]

+1

[hickscorp]

+1, we're also evaluating visual schema builders and it could be a showstopper for us to pick this one.
Keep up the good work - can't wait for more features!