Re: Extending the standard controls

Michael,

I don't think there is a particular "recommended" approach at this point.

That declarative extension mechanism you want is clearly the ideal
solution. It comes down to a component model with declarative bindings
to elements. This is what Orbeon Forms implements, based on a draft of
XBL 2, with extensions to make the system better adapted to XForms.
(Although Orbeon Forms doesn't implement bindings based on appearances
yet, but that is pretty close.)

However there is no standard for anything like that. The XForms
Working Group did discuss components in the pasts but hasn't started
any actual standardization work.

One route that was considered was to use XBL 2 as the underlying
piece, but XBL 2 is no longer developed at W3C and will never be a
Recommendation, at least not in its current shape. On the other hand,
the key concepts behind XBL 2 (in particular Shadow DOM and
encapsulation) are making it to browsers as we speak via Web
Components [1], minus the declarative aspects, and lots of people are
excited by this.

If one was to standardize a component system for XForms, a few steps
would be needed:

- decide whether to base it on Web Components, a variation of XBL 2,
or something else
- determine a declarative markup format, possibly close to what XBL 2 did
- determine what XForms-specific constructs are needed, based on
implementation experience (such as exposing bindings, etc.)

-Erik

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/components-intro/

Received on Saturday, 8 March 2014 07:26:44 UTC