Feedback on Working Draft of 07 Dec

Dear XForms team,

I've just read most of XForms 1.0 (WD 07 Dec 2001, ) as  'light'
evening reading. This is my first real entry into this topic.

My initial comments and reactions may be of help. Even if I'm wrong,
they may indicate where other newbies might also have difficulties or
concerns.

2.1 Internationalisation
I find the claim that "Using XML 1.0 *ensures* ... internationalised."
a bit strong.
All XML seems to provide are:
-  Internationalised characters sets,
-  The ability to add 'xml:lang' attribute tags.
The implementer of XForms has *lots* to do herself in this area
(see 8.1 - Input - for example)


2.1 Multiple device support
Surely you mean
    "..re-present the user interaction on different devices."
not
   "...re-purpose the user interaction to different devices."
The purpose is the same, the presentation is different.


2.1 Declarative event handlers
I found the grammar clumsy here, you seem to be contrasting an
adverbial phrase ( "statically analyzable") to a noun phrase
("imperative program code").


2.4 Providing instance data
I found the same identifier "as" occurring as an element name, an
attribute name and an attribute value confusing (but perhaps
unavoidable?).

The example made me wonder if

<payment as="credit"  cc="" exp="" xmlns="..." />

would also be acceptable,
or alternatively if there was some permitted syntax such as

<payment  xmlns="..." >
     <as default="credit" />
    <cc/>
    <exp/>
</payment>


3 Terminology - computed expression
'relevant' and 'calculate' should be presented in a different font
(e.g. italic).,
or else the example put in brackets.


6.4.2 Binding constraints last para
Spurious 'an' (or should be 'and' with comma removed?)

7.4.2.1 avg()
Picky mathematicians might say this should be called 'mean()'.


7.4.3.2 now()
Surely the comment "(normalized to UTC)" belongs in the first
sentence - referring to the time, not in the second, referring to the
zone.


8.2 textarea
Control of word wrapping
As far as I can tell, the combination of XForms 1.0 and CSS2 does not
support the functionality of the HTML textarea 'wrap' attribute. The
CSS 'overflow' does not really cover this. Although control of the
wrapping is a 'presentational' issue belonging in a style sheet, maybe
the XForms team has to lobby strongly to ensure this is supported in
CSS3.


8.3  secret
A 'well known' browser has the useful behaviour that, if a page is
returned to using the browser's 'Back' function, the password field is
cleared. Would this be useful behaviour to mandate for the 'secret'?
Or maybe just say that is can *only* take input from the user(see also
9.2 below)

8.6 range
"xsd:gDay" should not be in bold.

8.12.1 Common Attributes
The example states that the class attribute can have a space-separated
list of classes.
The comments below imply that only a single class may be used.
Which is it?

9.2 refresh
...and other means of returning to a page, using Back or calling up
bookmarked pages.
As the developer of an application which uses long sequences of forms,
I find the
ability of the user to go back and re-present 'old' data at any time a
nightmare.
What I currently have to do is allocate a serial number to each page I
generate, and 'slap the user on the wrist' if she uses the back
button.
Can I put in a plea for some better, specified, behaviour with this
respect?
Would it be possible to mandate that forms with non-inline data should
always re-load that data each time the page is presented?
Leaving it to the user's manipulation of her cache control is not good
enough.

9.15 message
IMHO messages *must* be given an identifier, so that it is possible to
replace the content of the same modeless message panel, rather than
create a new one. I believe this to be a *vital* usability feature - I
could provide use cases if that would help.

Review ended at section 10.

There *is* someone out here reading this material :-)

Hope this was of use,

Chris Haynes

Received on Tuesday, 11 December 2001 17:54:12 UTC