Re: @number attribute on xforms:repeat

I have worked with both mozilla (which does not implement @number) and 
formsplayer.  Formsplayer had a bug where insert did not set the index, 
but I believe that is now fixed.  It does implement @number which uses 
the index as the start row and the displays a repeat with at least that 
number of rows.  Unfortunately this is not a good solution as if you 
have say a trigger in the repeat it will repeat that for all of the rows 
that don't exist at the end of the list.
I think if a uniform way of displaying a repeat is to be defined then 
some of the issues to consider are:

@number is the number of visible rows.  What happens at the end, do you 
force a display of 'at least @number rows' or 'at most @number' rows.

Is @number used to display modulus of the display rows so the index is 
visible somewhere in the area or always at the first/last/middle row.

What happens when the area in the repeat elements is variable height.  
Generally the developer is setting @number to form some sort of grid to 
give a consistent display, having the display then go back to a liquid 
layout is probably not what was wanted.

There are probably more issues than just these, but if a standard way of 
handling @number and setindex is to be developed then at least these 
three should be explained as well.

Received on Tuesday, 29 November 2005 19:51:50 UTC