- From: Sikora, Gary <gjsikora@progeny.net>
- Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 15:06:50 -0400
- To: "Dharmesh Mistry" <dharmesh@edgeipk.com>, "Bob Foster" <bob@objfac.com>, <francisco.monteiro01@ntlworld.com>, <XForms@yahoogroups.com>, <www-forms@w3.org>
- Message-ID: <390F231507E5CC4996ACACE92CEC9CCA021972@es3.progeny.net>
Dharmesh, The advantages of pre-processor over plug-in: 1. Many organizations, both commercial and military, do not permit downloads because of security risks and/or added IT costs. 2. The developer of a XForms Web application does not need to be concerned whether clients/customers will be permitted to download a plug-in to make her site accessible. 3. The look-and-feel is the browser - no branding, the Web application developer is in full control. 4. A plug-in requires a specific browser type and version where preprocessors can scale the generated markup based on the browser's capability, e.g. WML to SVG. 5. Depending upon how a plug-in is implemented and the size of the document to be rendered, there could be a noticeable delay bringing the form up, much like opening a PDF file. The disadvantage of pre-processor over plug-in: 1. The produced script is larger than the XForms document itself - compared to other Web content such as images, videos, documents, animation, etc., this isn't an issue. Compression and caching techniques can be used to mitigate the script size. The advantage of XForms: 1. Web application interaction layer is declarative and host-independent, e.g it can be used with J2EE, .Net, Perl, etc. 2. Common data model between data and interaction layers. 3. Forms applications can be completely authored in XForms with zero dependencies on other logic hosted in Java or ASP, for example. This stand-alone feature enables offline forms interaction. Very respectfully, Gary -----Original Message----- From: Dharmesh Mistry [mailto:dharmesh@edgeipk.com] Sent: Monday, October 13, 2003 1:44 PM To: Sikora, Gary; Bob Foster; francisco.monteiro01@ntlworld.com; XForms@yahoogroups.com; www-forms@w3.org Subject: Re: [XForms] Re: Will Internet Explorer support XForms Thank you. Sorry I didn't spot that. So does this answer the question that it is not necessary for browsers (that is Internet Explorer) to support XForms for companies to deploy XForms compliant solutions? I would be interested in understanding what the advantages are of a plug-in over a preprocessor given the obvious download disadvantages. thanks...........Dharmesh ----- Original Message ----- From: Sikora, Gary <mailto:gjsikora@progeny.net> To: Dharmesh Mistry <mailto:dharmesh@edgeipk.com> ; Bob Foster <mailto:bob@objfac.com> ; francisco.monteiro01@ntlworld.com ; XForms@yahoogroups.com ; www-forms@w3.org Sent: Monday, October 13, 2003 6:01 PM Subject: RE: [XForms] Re: Will Internet Explorer support XForms www.formfaces.com offers a pre-processor and is listed on the W3C site. -----Original Message----- From: Dharmesh Mistry [mailto:dharmesh@edgeipk.com] Sent: Monday, October 13, 2003 11:07 AM To: Bob Foster; francisco.monteiro01@ntlworld.com; XForms@yahoogroups.com; www-forms@w3.org Subject: Re: [XForms] Re: Will Internet Explorer support XForms IE Support for XForms. ================ Please can someone confirm whether Xforms MUST have a plug-in or browser support. As I understand Xforms solutions can be deployed in two ways: 1) Browser based rendering (i.e. browser or plug-in interpretes XForms and renders screen at the client) or 2) Server based pre-processor, in which case an Xform implementation is translated to HTML/Javascript at the server so the browser see's a forms solutions without needing a plug-in or specific browser implementation. Xforms plug-ins are listed on the W3C site but not pre-processors such as what IBM provide. kind regards................Dharmesh ---- Original Message ----- From: Bob Foster <mailto:bob@objfac.com> To: francisco.monteiro01@ntlworld.com ; XForms@yahoogroups.com ; www-forms@w3.org Sent: Friday, October 10, 2003 7:12 PM Subject: Re: [XForms] Re: Will Internet Explorer support XForms > we use 'reflection' on the schema and build 80% of the UI dynamic, > it could be 100% but laws of ergonomics and 'real estate' will never > make this achievable. 80% seems quite good. Are you able to share the techniques used to achieve this? I am sure we would all benefit from this experience. Bob Foster http://www.xmlbuddy.com/ ----- Original Message ----- From: Francisco Monteiro <mailto:francisco.monteiro01@ntlworld.com> To: XForms@yahoogroups.com ; www-forms@w3.org Cc: Mark.Birbeck@x-port.net Sent: Friday, October 10, 2003 2:50 AM Subject: RE: [XForms] Re: Will Internet Explorer support XForms Hello Andrew You mention this InfoPath (which does more than XForms per se does) I do not believe the above. My company evaluated InfoPath and XForms (FormsPlayer) with a view of providing the Inland Revenue Self Assessment tax return. XForms won hands down. We have a very good demo showing XForms in it gory. Everybody knows providing any forms which deals with tax issues is complicated, granted that InfoPath has a good IDE but in our situation we use 'reflection' on the schema and build 80% of the UI dynamic, it could be 100% but laws of ergonomics and 'real estate' will never make this achievable. The beauty about XForms is the simplicity of its model bindings, a quite readable specification and FormsPlayer. Kind Regards Francisco Monteiro Director Facile Technology Ltd. _____ From: AndrewWatt2001@aol.com [mailto:AndrewWatt2001@aol.com] Sent: 09 October 2003 17:48 To: www-forms@w3.org Cc: XForms@yahoogroups.com In a message dated 09/10/2003 16:20:48 GMT Daylight Time, MShupe@AnyDocSoftware.com writes: I am curious. It seems to me that the value of XForms depends heavily on its being supported by the browsers. However, I have not heard any indication that Microsoft intends to support XForms in IE. They don't mention it anywhere on their site. Furthermore, they are not complying with it in their InfoPath product which suggests to me that XForms and InfoPath are competing. That is, Microsoft will probably have a vested interest in NOT supporting XForms. This concern was further confirmed after reading about Microsoft's lack of interest in fixing CSS bugs in IE. At the same time, I don't find anybody expressing concern about this in any of the XForms sites or forums. Am I missing something? Michael, My interpretation of Microsoft's strategy is that they are, by various means, tilting clients back from Web browsers towards paid-for clients. Office System 2003 programs can be used as front-ends to a range of server-based applications. Similarly InfoPath (which does more than XForms per se does) is a paid-for client, even when used simply to fill in InfoPath forms. This raises a range of deployment issues for the casual XML-based form. My interpretation is that Microsoft wishes to position InfoPath as an enterprise forms tool - for example to replace custom applications - not as a general-purpose ubiquitous Web forms tool. In other words InfoPath forms are targetted at use in settings where one user regularly fills in one or more InfoPath forms. The inclusion of InfoPath only in Enterprise editions of Office System 2003 fits with that suggestion. Bear in mind, also, that InfoPath 2003 is already here as an RTM product (at least for MSDN subscribers and some corporate customers, public release is 21st October). The InfoPath (previously XDocs) project has, I understand, a long history and design decisions were made long before XForms had reached anything resembling a fully stable specification. So there was, "back then", no XForms worthy of the name on which to build the InfoPath product. Another factor, in my mind anyway, is a lurking, nagging doubt about how secure XForms forms are. I asked that question on these lists many months ago and didn't receive a wholly satisfactory answer. XForms *may well* be secure. It's just that I would like to see a more compelling laying out of the evidence in support of that conclusion. What will InfoPath 2005(?) be like? Will there be a free fill-form-only InfoPath 2005 client? If there is, then maybe Microsoft will adopt XForms but the underlying architecture of InfoPath is *very* different from XForms. An XForms-compliant Microsoft client would be a very different animal under the hood from InfoPath 2003. Alternatively Microsoft may leave InfoPath as an enterprise tool and produce a more-limited functionality tool for XForms. Or may leave the low-value space to others. There are many options. As far as browser support of XForms is concerned then there are "plug ins" which others have mentioned in their replies. Andrew Watt Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ADVERTISEMENT click here <http://rd.yahoo.com/M=251812.4024216.5238180.1261774/D=egroupweb/S=1705 016061:HM/A=1754451/R=0/SIG=11tmlldst/*http:/www.netflix.com/Default?mqs o=60178323&partid=4024216> <http://us.adserver.yahoo.com/l?M=251812.4024216.5238180.1261774/D=egrou pmail/S=:HM/A=1754451/rand=146936195> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: XForms-unsubscribe@egroups.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service <http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/> .
Received on Monday, 13 October 2003 15:07:09 UTC