Re: [XForms 2] New feature - external models

Yes, it's a nice alternative solution to the one suggested by Steven.

If we take a step back from the solution for a moment and ask ourselves 
what is the underlying requirement, I think that would help. 

The model/@src solution by itself allows multiple pages to share *a* 
model. 
An XInclude solution would allow multiple pages to share *parts* of a 
model appropriate to that page.

So, in keeping with our telecon discussion today about how far we really 
are into the space of "applications on the web", the question to be 
answered here is what will actually provide benefit to application 
authors?

Sharing just a model across web pages appears to be too coarse grain when 
you think about what a model does.  If a model has all the constraints 
needed to complete a piece of XML, and you share that across web pages 
that are intended to work in concert toward that completion, then how do 
you get from one web page to another?  We either have to turn off 
submission validation or ... we need to share parts of a model appropriate 
to completing each of the web pages in the overall application.

Something like XInclude or XLink, or even model/@src combined with 
"submodels" would work, but let's first see if we agree with the details 
of the requirement, i.e. what exactly is going to get better by the 
addition of the feature.

Cheers,
John M. Boyer, Ph.D.
STSM, Interactive Documents and Web 2.0 Applications
Chair, W3C Forms Working Group
Workplace, Portal and Collaboration Software
IBM Victoria Software Lab
E-Mail: boyerj@ca.ibm.com 

Blog: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/page/JohnBoyer
Blog RSS feed: 
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/rss/JohnBoyer?flavor=rssdw





From:
Erik Bruchez <ebruchez@orbeon.com>
To:
"Forms WG (new)" <public-forms@w3.org>
Date:
05/27/2009 10:38 AM
Subject:
Re: [XForms 2] New feature - external models



Quick note on this: we need to at least consider the benefits/ 
drawbacks of using XInclude, which provides a simple inclusion semantic.

-Erik

On May 27, 2009, at 8:09 AM, Steven Pemberton wrote:

> Kicking off the future version discussion. Here is the first of the 
> features I would like to see.
>
> External models
>
>                <model id="tax" src="taxes.xml" />
>
> This is above all useful for making several forms for editing a 
> model, so that you don't have to keep updating the models all over 
> the place as the details change. Binds can be used to shield the 
> forms from internal model changes.
>
> I'm not sure that much has to change to support this, though we need 
> to explicitely address the question of whether it is still ok that 
> @bind is an idref
>
>                <input model="tax" bind="income">...
>
> Maybe in XForms 2, we could change the use of IDREF into something 
> else, so that we are not restricted in the same way as we have been 
> (thereby making the switch in repeat problem go away).
>
> Steven
>

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