Re: Because type is for datatype, there should not be a problem for XForms Basic

Hi John

I just wanted to comment on your view of structural validation.  
Whether or not a structural error is fixable by a form user depends  
rather on how an author has built a form and intends it to be used.  
XForms that are less rigidly structured, more akin to editors often  
do allow the user to make more structural decisions, and  
"interactive" schema validation can be very useful to a form user as  
applications like the Oxygen XML editor demonstrate.

Even with more structured forms I have often found myself wanting to  
know and/or indicate to a user whether a structure is valid whilst a  
form is being used. This often relates to choices, or iterations of  
repeating structures/elements which are both cases where a user can  
often influence structural validity.

So whilst I agree that many forms can get by without structural  
validation until submission, I do think that structural validation  
can be a useful as part of the working of forms. It is really down to  
the intent of the form author.

Consequently, as a form author, I find XForms concentration on  
validation of values over validation of structure something of a  
limitation that I hope will disappear in the future.


> The *first* thing the spec says is that type assigns a schema  
> datatype.  This makes a ton of sense because the client-side needs  
> input validation; structural validation we get because we build  
> XForms with stock components like a schema engine.  Most structural  
> errors would not be fixable by the client-side end-user.

All the best

MarkS

Received on Monday, 8 May 2006 10:51:41 UTC