Re: Unfortunate choice of attribute name in XForms 1.1: xforms:submission/@target

> in your post starting this thread you wrote
>
> >> > (Note that in our implementation, we already support an extension
> >> > attribute called xxforms:target on xforms:submission and  
> xforms:load,
> >> > which behaves like its HTML counterpart.)
>
> Note that we have @show on xf:load which mirrors the HTML form/ 
> @target attribute. No need for @target there.

I am not in favor of frames in general, but @target does more than  
@show since it allows you to target a frame by name, not just open a  
new window:

   http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/types.html#h-6.16

It also support the predefined _blank, _self, _parent and _top names.

I don't entirely dislike the idea of reusing @show, but it seems that  
it falls short of being an equivalent to the HTML @target attribute,  
in addition to being a less familiar name.

> So, why not adding @show to xf:submission? It would be optional and  
> would only be considered when @replace="all" (analogous to @target,  
> which is only evaluated on @replace="instance" or @replace="text").
>
> We don't need to match the HTML attribute names, we only need a  
> mapping like this:
>
> html:form	xf:submission (defaults to @replace="all")
> @action		@resource
> @enctype	@method
> @target		@show
>
> Adding a new attribute to xf:submission, however, does not feel good  
> to me. We already have 21 attributes for this element. This  
> painfully highlights the need for a submission refactoring. Which  
> would be worth another thread.


Yes, submission has a lot of attributes...

But using attributes with familiar names would help in that kind of  
situation. Introducing xforms:submission/@target as a new attribute in  
XForms 1.1, but with a meaning different from the HTML @target  
attribute, does add to the confusion, especially for authors with a  
solid HTML background.

I am not sure why xforms:load/@show was picked back in the days, but  
today, in the context of XForms 1.2 in particular, it seems that we  
are trying if possible to be closer from HTML.

-Erik

--
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http://www.orbeon.com/

Received on Tuesday, 8 April 2008 21:06:25 UTC