Re: [Moderator Action] Aug 21, 2002 Draft

sent to www-forms-editor@w3.org

----- Original Message -----
From: <Markdelanoy@aol.com>
To: <www-forms-editor@w3.org>
Sent: Friday, August 30, 2002 3:12 PM
Subject: [Moderator Action] Aug 21, 2002 Draft


>
>
> I've been looking at using XFORMS on the server side to describe the view
(xforms controls) and as a common XML format for the internal dynamic
data/model (xforms model/binding) sort of like an envelope around the
dynamic/static data.
>
> The thought is to use XML for the XFORM model/binding and XSL to contain
the XFORM control widgets.  This would make use of the XPATH expressions
from the control ref or model bindings to populate the XFORMS controls with
data.  The result is an XFORM XML document with just the controls populated
with data.
>
> A subsequent XSL transform would add the "skin", e.g. images, css,
javascript references as well as HTML or WAP or ... whatever.
>
> So I apologize for this long email but I've found the following issues.
>
> 1.) Model Binding or Control binding attribute group -> Right now the
binding is broken up into a reference to a model and then the XPATH
expression into that model.  This is problematic if your doing server side
XSL as you typically would have one XPATH expression, e.g.
model[@id='myModel']/instance/myElement...
>
> So my suggestion is add an XPATH expression that combines BOTH the model
lookup AND the xpath expression into that model.  Otherwise it's very
difficult for XSL to be used to get data from the model.
>
> *** The rest of my comments are aimed at the controls section of the
XFORMs proposed draft.
> 1.) There doesn't appear to be any support for hidden fields or there
doesn't seem to be an obvious way to add to use some form of extensions to
add widget's to the schema.  This is a necessity within any web based forms
application.
> 2.) item/itemset within select and select1.  There doesn't seem to be a
way to pre select an item within a list.  For example within HTML there is
the select attribute.
>
> I see several use cases here.
> First, if there's a static list of items you need a reference into the
dynamic data if this item has been selected.  So perhaps at the control
element there's a select XPATH expression into the model (in esssence a
binding mechanism for select one item of the list) used to evaluate each
item within the list.
>
> Or second, sometimes there's a per item check, e.g. so in this case there
is a need to have a select XPATH/binding information per item.
>
> So there would be an order of presidence, e.g. if control select binding
is provided then that takes presidence over item select binding...
>
> thanks, md

Received on Tuesday, 3 September 2002 09:15:12 UTC