On Tue, 2005-09-27 at 11:32 +1000, Jean Hollis Weber wrote: > Jonathon Coombes wrote: > > On Fri, 2005-09-23 at 15:37 +0200, Thomas Hackert wrote: > > If I get some time, I will try and contribute :) > > > > I am using 1.9.130 at the moment with little crashing. There is only > > one action that I can reproduce a crash in OOo using xforms (so far). > > > > I am certainly testing it at the moment. I am working on a project > > that will ultimately define whether the xforms is useful as a part > > of OpenOffice.org or not for large organisations. I must say that > > so far, the thought that has gone into it is very good and it does > > appear to provide distinct advantages over other methods. On the > > downside, it does take some learning and the lack of documentation > > is noticable. > > > > The xforms are the "next generation" of HTML forms which is what is > > in OOo 1.x series and on the web. The differences are summed up as: > > > > * XML-based rather than HTML-based. > > * MVC model - separation of content and display > > * Allows automation using calculations based on XPath > > * Constraints and validation built in to the controls > > * Selectable relevancy of the data items > > * W3C standard (not that HTML forms are not a standard) > > > > As I mentioned, they are difficult to learn, particularly in OOo, > > but once you understand the power of xforms, they will prove to > > be quite useful. I am designing my project based around xforms to > > not only allow flexibility, scalability and validation, but also > > to make it platform independent. That is, xforms should be able to > > be shifted from OOo onto a suitable web server and still function > > exactly the same as before. > > > > Hope this helps clear up some details on xforms in OOo as it stands. > > Jonathan, > > Thank you! This is great information. I hope you can find some time to > contribute to writing it up for the Forms chapter in the Writer Guide, or > -- if it seems more relevant -- a separate chapter on xforms. If you don't > have much time, perhaps you could provide us with a good practical example > and some notes. Then some of us can write it up and you could review what > we've written. Or some variation on this sequence... whatever works is good > in collaborative writing, I think.
Hi Jean, It will almost certainly be a separate chapter in itself. It could even, in theory, be done as a totally separate guide due to the size of the information required. At this stage, I would probably hold off on the examples, other than to say that the xforms can function almost identically to the html forms without the user even knowing. There are some issues that I still want to sort out before I start putting "pen to paper". One such issue which I am about to query with the xml team is that master documents seem to accept xforms as valid sub-documents, but when they are included, all XML functionality of the xform is lost and it behaves as a very simple HTML form?!? Most annoying and hopefully can be remedied fairly quickly for my project :) Regards Jonathon
