Re: Unfortunate choice of attribute name in XForms 1.1: xforms:submission/@target

Hi Erik,

I'm not wholly unsympathetic.

At a detail level it is a different use based on context.

At a less detailed level, though, it is the same use of the attribute. The 
target attribute is just saying where the result of the submission is 
supposed to go.  But where the results go is based on a higher level 
attribute that controls a more fundamental direction for the result:  1) 
inside same form as data update, or 2) not inside the same form.

Though I did not choose the name, I *think* it was actually this 
similarity or analogy that caused the name "target" to be chosen in the 
first place.  We're aiming the submission result at a specific place, and 
where it is aimed is dependent on what we're doing (replacing data versus 
replacing document content).

Cheers,
John M. Boyer, Ph.D.
Senior Technical Staff Member
Lotus Forms Architect and Researcher
Chair, W3C Forms Working Group
Workplace, Portal and Collaboration Software
IBM Victoria Software Lab
E-Mail: boyerj@ca.ibm.com 

Blog: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/page/JohnBoyer
Blog RSS feed: 
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/rss/JohnBoyer?flavor=rssdw





Erik Bruchez <ebruchez@orbeon.com> 
Sent by: public-forms-request@w3.org
04/08/2008 10:27 AM

To
"Forms WG (new)" <public-forms@w3.org>
cc

Subject
Re: Unfortunate choice of attribute name in XForms 1.1: 
xforms:submission/@target







John,

You are right that this would be used in combination with 
replace="all", and that technically it is possible to do what you are 
saying (and BTW it would be quite easy to express this with Relax NG).

However in general I think it is bad practice to give an attribute or 
element a different meaning depending on context. At least in my case, 
when learning a vocabulary, associating a specific meaning with a name 
allows me to better remember. Doing otherwise just adds to confusion.

So I would rather rename the attribute to prevent the confusion in the 
first place. This will help form authors.

-Erik

On Apr 8, 2008, at 9:53 AM, John Boyer wrote:
>
> Hi Erik,
>
> It seems that the use of "target" you are describing might be a 
> legitimate use of it in combination with replace="all", so it might 
> not be in conflict with our current use of it for replace="instance" 
> and replace="text".
>
> The only difference might be the schema datatype for the attribute 
> would change based on the value of another attribute.  Schema 
> doesn't support this, but a limitation there should not get in the 
> way of using the same attribute for analogous operations.  When 
> replacing an instance, the target for where we put the submission 
> result is given by an XPath into the data.  When doing a 
> replace="all", it would be up for debate whether target should give 
> an XPath on the document or be an IDREF.
>
> What do you think?
>
> John M. Boyer, Ph.D.
> Senior Technical Staff Member
> Lotus Forms Architect and Researcher
> Chair, W3C Forms Working Group
> Workplace, Portal and Collaboration Software
> IBM Victoria Software Lab
> E-Mail: boyerj@ca.ibm.com
>
> Blog: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/page/JohnBoyer
> Blog RSS feed: 
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/rss/JohnBoyer?flavor=rssdw
>
>
>
>
> Erik Bruchez <ebruchez@orbeon.com>
> Sent by: public-forms-request@w3.org
> 04/07/2008 05:23 PM
>
> To
> "Forms WG (new)" <public-forms@w3.org>
> cc
> Subject
> Unfortunate choice of attribute name in XForms 1.1: 
> xforms:submission/@target
>
>
>
>
>
>
> All,
>
> It just occurred to me that the XForms 1.1 xforms:submission/@target
> attribute [1] is badly chosen.
>
> The reason is that a "target", in HTML speak, specifies an optional
> target window or frame. This, in particular, applies to <a> and <form>
> in HTML. [2]
>
> In the future, we may want to officially support such a concept of
> target window or frame in XForms. Purely out of familiarity with HTML,
> the name "target" would be an obvious choice. But if we use "target"
> now to specify the destination for data replacement, we won't be able
> to use that name.
>
> (Note that in our implementation, we already support an extension
> attribute called xxforms:target on xforms:submission and xforms:load,
> which behaves like its HTML counterpart.)
>
> For this reason I suggest that we change the name of this attribute in
> XForms 1.1. Suggestions are welcome, but "destination" could work.
>
> -Erik
>
> [1] http://www.w3.org/TR/xforms11/#submit
> [2] http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/present/frames.html#adef-target
>
> --
> Orbeon Forms - Web Forms for the Enterprise Done the Right Way
> http://www.orbeon.com/
>
>
>

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Orbeon Forms - Web Forms for the Enterprise Done the Right Way
http://www.orbeon.com/