Re: extending the insertelement: inserted content contained in insert element

Hi Danno,

My apologies that we have not responded sooner to your email.
The XForms working group has discussed the issues and asked me to
respond based on the discussion.

<danno>
While reading the section on inserting into empty collections it seemed
to me a bit Kludge to have to references a (likely) separate model
element as the origin xpath.  One idea that crossed my mind was to allow
the insert element to contain any content (xsd:any) that will be
inserted.  This content could not exist if there is any Node Set Binding
attributes or origin attribute, or it would need to have precedence
explicitly set to above or below the node set binding.  This would help
to localize the data within the form nearer to it's use.
</danno>

We agree on the necessity of tightening what we say about Evaluation 
Context for edge cases 
such as when a model change occurs.  However, the context model is 
selected by the model 
attribute and applies to the initial selection of the context node to be 
used in evaluating the 
insert context, not just the nodeset binding.  Moreover, the insert 
context is used to initiate the 
evaluation of the origin.  So, we believe the insert action operates over 
the nodes of a single
model, which addresses your concern over having two models being used 
within an insert action. 

With regard to the suggestion that we instead allow the insert element to 
contain xsd:any content 
to be inserted, it should be noted that it is a good suggestion, though we 
cannot adopt all good
suggestions.  In this case, we have specifically avoided this approach as 
it causes XML data to 
infest the entire document rather than staying centralized within XML 
instances. Also, by keeping 
XML data strictly within the instances of models, the template for new 
insertion data is closer to the 
point where it will be inserted.  In other words, the template data is 
used within instance data, not 
at the point where an insert action appears.

We hope this explanation satisfactorily explains why the working group has 
elected not to pursue 
further the idea of placing the insertion template into the insert element 
as content.

Best regards,
John M. Boyer, Ph.D.
Senior Product Architect/Research Scientist
Co-Chair, W3C XForms Working Group
Workplace, Portal and Collaboration Software
IBM Victoria Software Lab
E-Mail: boyerj@ca.ibm.com  http://www.ibm.com/software/

Blog: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/page/JohnBoyer