RE: How to change the order of repeat-items?

Mark -- I wasn't clear in my earlier note.
I wasn't pushing back on sort in the UI layer; I was pushing back
on the idea of doing it with simple attrs on the UI construct
because I think that appraoch (i.e. attrs) will not have enough
expressive power.


>>>>> "Mark" == Mark Birbeck <mark.birbeck@x-port.net> writes:
    Mark> Raman,
    >> The idea of putting sort attrs on the ui layer is
    >> enticing, but I am afraid it will run into a wall fairly
    >> quickly.
    Mark> 
    Mark> I disagree ;)
    Mark> 
    Mark> As you know -- since you are a strong advocate for it
    Mark> -- there are many situations where the UI does not
    Mark> *directly* reflect the model. For example, take
    Mark> xf:select1; its purpose is for the user to choose an
    Mark> item from a list, but it is possible for the list to
    Mark> not be 'in view', even though the list is obviously in
    Mark> the model. The list might be limited because the author
    Mark> has used:
    Mark> 
    Mark>   @appearance="minimal"
    Mark> 
    Mark> or it might be limited because the user has collapsed a
    Mark> node in a tree, or whatever.
    Mark> 
    Mark> Other examples would be the use of date pickers to both
    Mark> select and render dates, check-boxes that look nothing
    Mark> like the word 'true' or 'false', colour pickers that
    Mark> obviously don't look like #ab7f34, a number like "100"
    Mark> stored in the model but rendered as "$100.00", and so
    Mark> on.
    Mark> 
    Mark> So, my view is that *some* (not all) of the use cases
    Mark> for sorting fall into this domain -- the user might be
    Mark> able to control them and the author might be able to
    Mark> hint at them, but either way, the model doesn't
    Mark> care. (To put it in terms of the MVC architecture, we
    Mark> are simply allowing the creation of an ordered 'view'
    Mark> of a set of nodes, without touching the underlying
    Mark> nodes.)
    Mark> 
    Mark> 
    Mark> I would say that the sortable columns of email or
    Mark> contacts falls into the category of a 'user sort' --
    Mark> this can be done with no mark-up at all, since it's
    Mark> just a more complex version of the button next to a
    Mark> drop-box that shows you the list of options, and is not
    Mark> under the control of XForms, but under the control of
    Mark> the user agent.
    Mark> 
    Mark> In the category of an 'author-hint sort' would be the
    Mark> rendering of the selections in a selection list; the
    Mark> names of the countries would be in one order in one
    Mark> language, and in another order in another language, for
    Mark> example.
    Mark> 
    Mark> And in the category of a 'model sort' might be the list
    Mark> of items in a flowchart, since in this case the order
    Mark> in the model really does matter.
    Mark> 
    Mark> The 'model sort' is more accurately a proper
    Mark> re-ordering of nodes, that should be permanent, and
    Mark> would therefore be achieved through an action or
    Mark> extension function. The second one is more like a
    Mark> 'filter' -- a different 'view' on the same underlying
    Mark> nodes, but with those nodes left completely intact.
    Mark> 
    Mark> Regards,
    Mark> 
    Mark> Mark
    Mark> 
    Mark> 
    Mark> Mark Birbeck CEO x-port.net Ltd.
    Mark> 
    Mark> e: Mark.Birbeck@x-port.net t: +44 (0) 20 7689 9232 w:
    Mark> http://www.formsPlayer.com/ b:
    Mark> http://internet-apps.blogspot.com/
    Mark> 
    Mark> Download our XForms processor from
    Mark> http://www.formsPlayer.com/
    Mark> 
    Mark> 

-- 
Best Regards,
--raman
------------------------------------------------------------
T. V. Raman:  PhD (Cornell University)
IBM Research: Human Language Technologies
Architect:    RDC --- Conversational And Multimodal WWW Standards
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Received on Monday, 18 April 2005 19:43:17 UTC