Re: Extending the standard controls

Erik,

Thanks for your response.

I have not fully researched web-components as yet but perhaps it is
the best long term solution. However by looking at the steps you list
to getting it into the standard and knowing that XForms 2.0 is likely
to be the main focus of energy currently I would have thought an
approach such http://www.exslt.org/ is the simplest for now.

For instance Orbeon, betterForm and XSLTForms[1] all support a combo
box like control. Could we not define a simple declarative way of
representing the combo box and some mini-XSLT transforms to convert it
into implementation specific representation? If all the transforms are
published in an open way would that not achieve the portability I am
seeking? If there are controls not implemented by certain XForm
processors then these would at least be known gaps and the processor
authors and others could contribute "code" to help plug these gaps.

If there is broad support for this approach it is perhaps something I
could put my energy into.

Thanks,

Mike

[1] http://www.agencexml.com/xsltforms/wikipediasearch.xml

On 8 March 2014 07:25, Erik Bruchez <erik@bruchez.org> wrote:
> Michael,
>
> I don't think there is a particular "recommended" approach at this point.
>
> That declarative extension mechanism you want is clearly the ideal
> solution. It comes down to a component model with declarative bindings
> to elements. This is what Orbeon Forms implements, based on a draft of
> XBL 2, with extensions to make the system better adapted to XForms.
> (Although Orbeon Forms doesn't implement bindings based on appearances
> yet, but that is pretty close.)
>
> However there is no standard for anything like that. The XForms
> Working Group did discuss components in the pasts but hasn't started
> any actual standardization work.
>
> One route that was considered was to use XBL 2 as the underlying
> piece, but XBL 2 is no longer developed at W3C and will never be a
> Recommendation, at least not in its current shape. On the other hand,
> the key concepts behind XBL 2 (in particular Shadow DOM and
> encapsulation) are making it to browsers as we speak via Web
> Components [1], minus the declarative aspects, and lots of people are
> excited by this.
>
> If one was to standardize a component system for XForms, a few steps
> would be needed:
>
> - decide whether to base it on Web Components, a variation of XBL 2,
> or something else
> - determine a declarative markup format, possibly close to what XBL 2 did
> - determine what XForms-specific constructs are needed, based on
> implementation experience (such as exposing bindings, etc.)
>
> -Erik
>
> [1] http://www.w3.org/TR/components-intro/

Received on Sunday, 9 March 2014 18:14:30 UTC