RE: Other controls ? Grid ?

Hi Dan,

I believe XForms was designed to abstract the interface intention from it's
visual or audible implementation. The problem is that visual forms are very
2-dimensional so tables fit easily, but voice 'forms' are very 1-dimensional
sequential objects. So the question is how do you represent the intention of
a 2-dimensional table in an abstract way. One way would be a list of lists
(which after all is how tabular is normally represented in XML and XForms is
XML). So if tables can be implemented by lists (and vice versa) and XForms
has lists, I suggest that's problem solved.

Kit

-----Original Message-----
From: Dan Dennedy [mailto:DDennedy@digitalbang.com]
Sent: 01 February 2002 14:48
To: Kit Davies; DESEYNE Jacques; www-forms@w3.org
Subject: RE: Other controls ? Grid ?


A grid is essentially a table. A table can be as little as a single column,
also known as a list. Are you implying that lists are unusable in diverse
environments? I believe what you are describing is a design or
implementation issue, and not an issue with the paradigm of information
presented in a tabular manner. 
-----Original Message-----
From: Kit Davies [mailto:KDavies@categoric.com]
Sent: Friday, February 01, 2002 9:19 AM
To: 'DESEYNE Jacques'; www-forms@w3.org
Subject: RE: Other controls ? Grid ?


Jacques, 
I work for a company writing software which communicates with users over a
wide range of devices/channels. Grids are great for fairly large visual
interfaces, but I find their use becomes more difficult the smaller the
visual area gets. Plus they are completely unusable when working with
non-visual interfaces (voice browsers, etc) which were also part of the
XForms remit.
Modularised XHTML is a better bet. This allows the minimum capabilities
required by a browser to be stated in a form. Then a user/browser can pick
the one best suited for the device, using grids if possible, or some other
design if not.
Kit 
-----Original Message----- 
From: DESEYNE Jacques [mailto:jacques.deseyne@swift.com] 
Sent: 01 February 2002 08:46 
To: www-forms@w3.org 
Subject: Other controls ? Grid ? 


All, 
From my lecture of the current Last Call draft (I've discovered XForms only
very recently), it would seem that an XForms specification is not really
intended to provide a framework for generic User Interfaces. It lacks
several controls commonly found in widely-used GUI "foundation classes". 
Among other things, one 'control' we frequently need is a kind of grid or
table, to present a set of tuples. In principle, it would be possible to
mimic a grid by repeat structures, but the appearance and behaviour will be
slightly different, in the best case. Of course, one could always envision
to make her/his own non-standard extensions... 
Maybe I am missing something and I should apologise for not having read some
requirements document, but what was the motivation to limit the defined
controls to more or less what is already available in HTML forms ? 
Best regards, 
-- 
Jacques Deseyne 
Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (S.W.I.F.T.) 
SWIFTAlliance WebStation Development Team - IT/Interfaces 
http://www.swift.com 
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