Philip Chee wrote:
On Wed, 18 Nov 2009 12:56:32 -0500, Phillip Jones wrote:
Yes I am glad to see consideration of putting a legitimate Forms Manager
Back. I would prefer one that worked similar to the one in SM1.1.8; But
one based on the form History Manager Plugin would do.
OK there are actually two parts to the problem.
1. The form autofill functionality that fills forms up on a page.
2. The Form History Editor used to edit/delete/correct mistakes.
The second is possibly solvable (with some restrictions) since it's just
front end UI code. We could even crib off the Form History extension there.
The first is more problematic since the code lives somewhere in toolkit
and is written mostly in C++.
The main caveat is that the toolkit form history implementation has no
concept of a "form" (!!). In the old XPFE form filler for each unique
webpage the component stored the URL and the fieldname/value pairs
together. In the toolkit implementation only fieldname/value pairs are
stored and these could be used for any webpage that contains those fields.
Just to be sure it's clear what a useful form manager would do, it should be
possible to fill out a form once, and save it with a form name, such that when I
go to that form, there is a way (I'm carefully noting function rather than how
to do it) to be offered the form(s) saved against this URL, using the names
assigned when saved.
Why this is useful: in case no one thinks that's generally useful, consider
Amazon.com. I order books for me for pleasure reading, one set of values, I
order a book or two for my daughter, same billing, different address and name
for ship to. Then I order book to use for business, like my pleasure reading but
different credit card.
For business I order from several parts vendors like newegg.com, and ship repair
parts to wherever they're needed. I want a form I use once for each location,
and the ability to change a field in a saved form and save that in the same name.
Does that clarify what a perfect forms manager could do? Handle one form by URL
is not enough, change values for each field by clicking in the field is too slow
and error prone. Handling multiple forms per URL, covering all filled fields,
would be perfect for almost any use. And if there was only one saved form for a
URL, autofill might be the right interface.
--
Bill Davidsen <[email protected]>
"We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from
the machinations of the wicked." - from Slashdot
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