I've been playing quite a bit these days with Xul, after a few years' hyatus which made me appreciate the comeback even more. :) I'm more and more inclined in devoting some of my Copious Free Time to a Xul CForms renderer, and I wanted to catch up with other fellow members and see what's going on.
I understand from http://issues.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=25295 that Jorg is already doing something, so before reinventing wheels I'd love to know what the current status is and if/how I might help. So far, I have identified a few points on my radar: 1. server roundtrip model: Xul doesn't really fit in a request-response model where all data travel at once upon hitting a submit button. This might lead to two different alternatives: (a) ajax all over the place, where more or less every widget submits events to a Cocoon server or (b) server roundtrips being avoided whenever possible thanks to the richest functionalities of a Xul frontend (think repeaters). Convergence with the new Ajax model of CForms somewhat blurs the line, yet I feel that a mere translation of CForms widgets to Xul without a rethink of the roundtrip model might be somewhat limiting (as in "uh, ok, so what?"). Actually, I might go as far as saying that the whole Xul/CForms marriage might not have that much sense now that we have Ajax and all the Web 2.0 yadda-yadda. That is, unless we figure out some real advantage in server interaction. 2. the role of XBL. I feel XBL (xul binding/extension language) might play an important role in producing advanced widgets (again, think repeaters, calendar popups, double selection lists... well, you name it). Still, XBL is tightly coupled with CSS, and I'm not sure how to manage the CSS->XBL relationship within Cocoon. 3. HTML orientation of CForms: despite a clear intention to stay as neutral as possibile, CForms has a strong bias towards HTML in its most advanced widgets (well, think HTMLarea to see my point). I'm not sure if it's entirely possible to get rid of the HTML heritage, and I kinda feel that in some cases it even doesn't make much sense (hey, after all Xul is happy with xhtml snippets). Well, these are just a few initial thoughts, which don't even deserve the status of [RT]: let's say I'm just trying to break the ice and see what's going on in Xul/Cocoonland. Awaiting for your comments! Ciao, -- Gianugo Rabellino Pro-netics s.r.l. - http://www.pro-netics.com Orixo, the XML business alliance: http://www.orixo.com (blogging at http://www.rabellino.it/blog/)
