RE: Managing Validation Error Messages

Correct, however, the spec does not define a mechanism for a form control's <alert> to know exactly what constraint failed and why. Using <alert>, the author can make a rather generic message similar to what Amir saw in X-Smiles. Also, the author could briefly (elegantly?) state what all of the facets and constraints are in the message.

My processor's default alert event handler generates a message action that contains a meaningful error message--at least to me ;-) However, the author has no control over that message except to completely override it with an <alert> message, which is typically less meaningful. Maybe a future xforms spec can include error data in the alert event's context info such that an author can insert something into a custom message using <output>.

> From: Werner Donné 
> 
> Dear Amir,
> 
> The form controls can have an "alert" element, which can 
> contain the error information that is presented to the user 
> in some way whenever the validation of the portion of the 
> instance data the control is bound to fails.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Werner.