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

Erik Bruchez wrote:
> 
>> in your post starting this thread you wrote
>>
>> >> > (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.)
>>
>> Note that we have @show on xf:load which mirrors the HTML form/@target 
>> attribute. No need for @target there.
> 
> I am not in favor of frames in general, but @target does more than @show 
> since it allows you to target a frame by name, not just open a new window:
> 
>   http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/types.html#h-6.16
> 
> It also support the predefined _blank, _self, _parent and _top names.
> 
> I don't entirely dislike the idea of reusing @show, but it seems that it 
> falls short of being an equivalent to the HTML @target attribute, in 
> addition to being a less familiar name.

Yes, of course. But "new" easily maps to "_blank", and "replace" to
"_self". The rest is frame-related which I wouldn't terribly miss.

> 
>> So, why not adding @show to xf:submission? It would be optional and 
>> would only be considered when @replace="all" (analogous to @target, 
>> which is only evaluated on @replace="instance" or @replace="text").
>>
>> We don't need to match the HTML attribute names, we only need a 
>> mapping like this:
>>
>> html:form    xf:submission (defaults to @replace="all")
>> @action        @resource
>> @enctype    @method
>> @target        @show
>>
>> Adding a new attribute to xf:submission, however, does not feel good 
>> to me. We already have 21 attributes for this element. This painfully 
>> highlights the need for a submission refactoring. Which would be worth 
>> another thread.
> 
> 
> Yes, submission has a lot of attributes...
> 
> But using attributes with familiar names would help in that kind of 
> situation. Introducing xforms:submission/@target as a new attribute in 
> XForms 1.1, but with a meaning different from the HTML @target 
> attribute, does add to the confusion, especially for authors with a 
> solid HTML background.

But we already deprecated @action in favor of @resource. So we have 
different names anyway.

> 
> I am not sure why xforms:load/@show was picked back in the days, but 
> today, in the context of XForms 1.2 in particular, it seems that we are 
> trying if possible to be closer from HTML.

This is an XLink behaviour attibute, see
http://www.w3.org/TR/xlink/#show-att. It supports values "new",
"replace", "embed", "other", and "none", which of course is not helpful 
with regard to frames.

Regards,
Uli.

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

-- 
Ulrich Nicolas Lissé

Received on Tuesday, 8 April 2008 22:22:47 UTC