RE: @number attribute on xforms:repeat

Peter,

> No I would say that what you are trying to do is exactly 
> inside the xforms box.

Yes. Although there are two ways you can do it (apply a filter, that is).
The first is to filter an existing list, in the way you describe:

>  I assume you are using a relevant on 
> a nodeset so that the nodes are made not relevant based on 
> your xpath expression.

That's pretty easy, but it's not very 'Ajax', is it? Given that XForms is
more Ajax than Ajax, we'd want to do something better than that. In fact you
can, by using @incremental and submission to retrieve matching items. One of
our Sidewinder applications shows a form linked to a local Access database,
that allows you to filter on the names of your contacts, and it uses
@incremental to apply the filter as you type. The same technique could also
be used to retrieve values from a server--a very nice convergence of XForms
and REST.

(I was actually reminded of this application when pondering Allan and Erik's
questions on @number; I'll write separately on it in the other thread, but
the more I thought about it, the more I thought that they are right that it
should be more than just a hint, but that perhaps the best use of @number
was not for providing a page at a time from an existing set of nodes in an
instance, but to assist a processor in obtaining pages of data from a
server. Anyway, back to the subject at hand...)


>  I know this should work in the 
> Mozilla world as the xpath support is very good, other 
> browsers may have trouble with complex xpath expressions, 
> depending on their level of compliance with the specs.

I can't comment on which browsers would have trouble, although I can say
which ones *won't* have trouble. X-Smiles wouldn't, and nor would IE with
formsPlayer--they were the first *full* implementations of the XForms
specification a few years ago, and remain 100% compliant. (Actually,
formsPlayer is 'over-compliant'--version 1.4 which will be out very soon
already supports all of XForms 1.0 Second Edition, and version 2.0 which has
been available as a beta for a while, supports nearly all of XForms 1.1.)

Regards,

Mark


Mark Birbeck
CEO
x-port.net Ltd.

e: Mark.Birbeck@x-port.net
t: +44 (0) 20 7689 9232
w: http://www.formsPlayer.com/

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Received on Tuesday, 29 November 2005 21:31:26 UTC