> For a long time I've been thinking about a feature in gnue-forms to pass > a connection and table name, let database introspection find out the > schema of the table, and dynamically build a form to edit all fields of > this database.
That definitely is an interesting idea, GFD-less operation with default/ non-customized forms. For straightforward applications, that would avoid the need to deploy GFD files separate from deploying the schema, while also avoiding adding meta-tables to the schema (as does Kexi). Such feature has potential to be of immediate use to me. Making a note to keep an eye out for schema/introspection code in Designer that may be adaptable for shared use by Forms & Designer. > Obviously it would be absurd that the database introspection part > creates an XML file/stream which gnue-forms later has to parse again - > better we would just dynamically build the object tree in memory. Of > course we could then always run dumpXML on the object tree root to get > an XML file out of it. > (Actually I think it is designer's way of working anyway to create the > object tree in memory and on save do a dumpXML) Restated, and/or adding additional perspectives: * For default/non-customized forms, output of the GFD-XML file is superfluous, and file-less operation would be better. * A generated GFD-XML file could be of use as a starting point, for manual customization of the form (looking forward also to customization through Designer). * Source code generating the new-style object tree, could be of use to adapt for Designer, or for sharing between Forms & Designer. /Randall _______________________________________________ gnue-dev mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnue-dev
