XForms 1.1 xforms-close

All,

There is currently not much information about "xforms-close" in the
1.1 draft spec, although I see it was discussed at a f2f in 2004 [1]
(note that this link is currently restricted to WG members).

I assume this is meant to capture things like the user closing the
window or application showing the form. For an engine running in a
browser, this would capture a window or tab close, for example. The
event handler has the opportunity to ask the user for a confirmation,
and then resend the event if the confirmation is accepted. Am I right?

Now consider the following types or actions that can be performed by
the user in a browser environment:

1. Window / tab close
2. Back / next buttons pressed
3. HTML anchor followed
4. Form submission

An application like GMail (not implemented with XForms, but it could
be ;-) will, for every single of those present the user with a
confirmation dialog. I believe that it is necessary to allow doing the
same with XForms, as in a browser environment there is nothing worse
then working on a form for 1/2 hour and then lose your work because
you navigated away from the page.

Note that there are two other ways of navigating away from a page in
XForms:

o xforms:load
o xforms:submission/@replace="all"

These two however are under the control of the XForms page author, who
can present the user with a confirmation.

It seems clear that xforms-close would apply to #1, and that with
XForms #4 above is handled by xforms:submission.

But what about #2 and #3? Is it reasonable for an implementation to
also send xforms-close in those cases? Or do we need other events to
indicate that the user is trying to move away from the page?

-Erik

[1] http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/Group/2004/09/f2f/2004Sept08

-- 
Orbeon - XForms Everywhere:
http://www.orbeon.com/blog/

Received on Tuesday, 27 June 2006 12:14:51 UTC