- From: Neil Walker <neil.walker@mrc-bsu.cam.ac.uk>
- Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 11:14:49 +0100 (BST)
- To: www-forms@w3.org, ashutosh.galande@tatainfotech.com
> It would be highly beneficial to have a perfect rendering engine
> (independent of a browser) that will felicitate coexisting of
> pre-printed paper forms and client-printed paper forms (printed from
> within the browser etc). I feel it should be possible to print a form
> from within a browser that looks exactly the same as its paper based
> counterpart and a plugin based approach is better in this regard.
Agreed a perfect rendering engine would be a Good Thing, I feel
technology should be used appropriately. On paper, I might say "please
circle the answer that best applies", while on a web form I might use a
checkbutton or pull-down list, and on a fax-back form a tickbox.
Like most of us on this list I'm working on a forms generator, and my
view on this is that there could be an extra button marked "Print" to
print out either a pre-prepared paper form, or something suitable
generated on the fly from the XML. The question then becomes, whether
XForms is required AT ALL, or whether we go straight for
HTML4+Javascript generation from a yet higher level metadata standard.
Yours
Neil Walker
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Neil Walker tel: +44 (0) 1223 330379
MRC Biostatistics Unit fax: +44 (0) 1223 330388
Cambridge, UK email: neil.walker@mrc-bsu.cam.ac.uk
web: http://www.mrc-bsu.cam.ac.uk
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Received on Wednesday, 14 June 2000 06:14:56 UTC