Re: forms-lite testbed

On Mon, 23 Oct 2006, T.V Raman wrote:

> For repeat via attributes, I suggest applying the xforms repeat
> attributes to fieldset --- we originally designed that set to go
> on html tr element.

I initially looked at the WebForms 2.0 approach to this but felt 
that it was too tightly bound to tables and that a more elegant 
approach was worth it. I therefore looked at the minimalist idea of 
just providing the set of fields and their labels that are to be 
repeated. The common styling will be as a number of rows with each 
label applying to the column below it. After a few experiments, I 
ended up with some code that separates the labels from the fields 
and then generates a table to wrap them. I tried using CSS for this, 
but it requires there to be nodes that act as table rows, and in any 
case it didn't work with Internet Explorer. I therefore chose to 
generate the HTML table elements as needed. You can see an example 
at:

   http://people.w3.org/~dsr/forms-lite/9/index.html

and also

   http://people.w3.org/~dsr/forms-lite/11/index.html

The fieldset element then acts as the XForms repeat element and 
takes an attribute that specifies the initial number of rows to 
show. XForms uses the number attribute for that, which makes sense 
given that it appears on the repeat element. However on the HTML 
fieldset element, having number as an attribute name wouldn't be 
obvious to most people as a means for indicating that the contents 
will be repeated. I therefore used "repeat" instead.

This is where I think we could do with inviting people who are
respected web developers to provide us with the perspective of
the authoring community that will be using this stuff.

p.s. there are a number of other issues relating to repeated 
fieldsets but I will leave that to later discussion.

  Dave Raggett <dsr@w3.org> http://www.w3.org/People/Raggett

Received on Tuesday, 24 October 2006 09:48:18 UTC