RE: The message action is for messages, not arbitrary dialogs

I don't think we can really argue intent, only what's implemented and
what's specified.
I know what I intended, and you know what you intended, and we were both
there at the same time and don't agree.
And it's implemented and working in at least some 1.0 processors, so
let's just not go there.
 
What we can fruitfully discuss, though, is calling a similar feature
'dialog' for 1.1 (modulated by the late stage of 1.1), or discuss it for
1.2 (modulated by the low expected value of 1.2 right now).  Erik has
raised some questions about event handling and I'd love to hear those.
 
Leigh.

________________________________

From: www-forms-request@w3.org [mailto:www-forms-request@w3.org] On
Behalf Of John Boyer
Sent: Thursday, December 07, 2006 5:10 PM
To: Elliotte Harold
Cc: ebruchez@orbeon.com; www-forms@w3.org; www-forms-request@w3.org
Subject: Re: The message action is for messages, not arbitrary dialogs



Hi Elliotte, 

I should start by saying that, having heard you speak at the XML
conference, this response is not entirely directed to you. 

Still, it is quite difficult to imagine a scenario in which 'message'
might legitimately be used in place of 'dialog' and the many examples
you cited are witnesses to that assertion. 

This keeps happening because of the definition of the word message.  A
message is one-sided.  A dialog would be composed of two or more
messages.  Like, you sent a message, and now I'm sending a message.  The
two together are a dialog. 

But the most telling is the definition of message that actually appears
in XForms recommendation.  It is defined to *display* a message *to* a
user.  There is nothing *from* the user that comes back to XForms.   

The content model is defined to be char data and XForms *output*.  The
spec then allows host language content to be added to message, which is
*not* the same as saying more *XForms* controls can be added to the
message content model.  The host language additions are not intended to
violate the given definition but rather in support of it to allow
decoration of the message.   

Should some example happen to arise where message is (mis)used to mean
dialog, that doesn't mean we should accept that as proper usage in
XForms. 

Cheers, 
John M. Boyer, Ph.D.
STSM: Workplace Forms Architect and Researcher
Co-Chair, W3C Forms Working Group
Workplace, Portal and Collaboration Software
IBM Victoria Software Lab
E-Mail: boyerj@ca.ibm.com  http://www.ibm.com/software/

Blog: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/page/JohnBoyer





Elliotte Harold <elharo@metalab.unc.edu> 
Sent by: www-forms-request@w3.org 

12/07/2006 07:46 AM 

To
ebruchez@orbeon.com 
cc
www-forms@w3.org 
Subject
Re: The message action is for messages, not arbitrary dialogs

	





Erik Bruchez wrote:

> o I like explicit over implicit. If you say "message", you mean
>   message. I don't know of any user interface framework that uses the
>   term "message" to also mean "dialog".
>

Google MessageBox. .NET, SWT, and ASP.NET all use this term instead of 
DialogBox. Possibly they think of MessageBox as a restricted form of 
DialogBox just for messages; i.e. an alert. I'm not sure, but certainly 
the word message is sometimes used in place of the word dialog.

-- 
Elliotte Rusty Harold  elharo@metalab.unc.edu
Java I/O 2nd Edition Just Published!
http://www.cafeaulait.org/books/javaio2/
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0596527500/ref=nosim/cafeaulaitA/