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Hello,

at first I want to say that XForms is very good advancement of HTML-Forms.

But while working with XForms I had some problems concerning the following
items. Therefore here are some suggestions:

(1) Messageboxes
	Use Case : Maybe the user should be asked before starting
		the submission whether he really wants to or not. (“Are you sure?  Yes /
No”)
	Propososal:
		Messages should get a type (is it a confirmation or a warning) and one
can assign the possible  		choices.
		<message type=”confirmation | question | information | warning” ref=”...” >
			<label>Are you sure ?</label>
			<item><label>Yes</label><value>y</value></item>
			<item><label>No</label><value>n</value></item>
		</message>
		 The type-attribute can result in different sounds or icons. (Depends on
the XForms-Processor)
(2) It should be possible to insert new (different) nodes in the
datamodell , e.g. if a <trigger> is "pressed". XForms:insert allows only
to insert nodes of the same structure.
(3) Most of todays applications have menubars. In xforms  simple menus can
be definied only with select1,but the representation is not what the user
suppose  to see.  A secound way is to use switch/cases to “simulate”
menuitems and submenuitems. Although this works fine (also with
subsubsubmenus) the UI-description becomes very complex (and it's not the

RE: e-Forms Partnership Possibilites

Jane,

We are very interested in seeing how FormFaces (www.formfaces.com) can
be used for this opportunity ... Stew Bittel will be in contact with you
to set up a teleconference if you so incline.

Very respectfully,
Gary Sikora
FormFaces Product Manager
gary.sikora <at> progeny.net
703.368.6107x109

-----Original Message-----
From: Jane Roberts [mailto:jane.roberts <at> toplev.com] 
Sent: Sunday, February 29, 2004 5:35 AM
To: www-forms <at> w3.org
Subject: e-Forms Partnership Possibilites

We are the manufacturers of OfficeForms.  We are a British Company and
OfficeForms is an e-Forms product, which has been on the market since
1996.
It is now a poweful product, having been available for all those years
and
contains a number of solutions, please see www.toplev.com if you would
like
more detailed background.

We've been watching the development of XForms for several years now and
the

What is Your XForms Player of Choice Online Poll: Call For Nominations

Hello,

   I plan to put up an online poll at the Richmond
Post news blog asking "What is Your XForms Player of
Choice?".

   I invite you to send in your nominations. Please
note that the pollhost.com service limits the choices
to ten.

   For now I will start off with the ten XForms
players listed in Micah Dubinko's article titled "Ten
Favorite XForms Engines" online  <at> 
http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2003/09/10/xforms.html

  The line-up includes:

  * Chibacon Chiba
  * IBM XML Forms Package (Beta)
  * MobiForm SVGViewPlus
  * Mozquito DENG
  * Novell XForms Player (Beta)
  * Orbeon Open XML Framework
  * Oracle Mobile XForms Player (Beta)
  * Ripcord Technology nForms
  * University of Helsinki X-Smiles
  * x-port FormsPlayer

  Let me know what players you want to see included.

Adobe Forms Designer

Has anyone seen much of this, especially in a forum that was using or
considering the use of XForms? 

Bob

-----Original Message-----
From: Peter Kacandes [mailto:pkacande <at> adobe.com]
Sent: Monday, March 15, 2004 1:14 PM
To: announce <at> lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: [announce] Adobe Launches Public Beta of New XML/PDF Form
Design Software

Adobe Launches Public Beta of New XML/PDF Form Design Software

Adobe Designer Delivers Powerful Capabilities for Easy Creation and
Deployment of Intelligent Documents in PDF
SAN JOSE, Calif., - March 8, 2004 - Adobe Systems Incorporated (NASDAQ:
ADBE) today announced the public beta availability of Adobe® Designer, a new
point-and-click graphical XML form design tool for designing and deploying
intelligent forms in Adobe PDF or HTML. The software enables organizations
to build solutions using Adobe document services for automating form-based
workflows and accelerating access to business-critical information.

"Adobe Designer supports organizations as they migrate to Web services and
XML," said Robert Glushko, Ph.D. with the School of Information Management
and Systems, University of California, Berkeley. "Creating new data
connections with XML is straightforward and intuitive because the software
lets you drag and drop form elements based on an XML schema. With Designer,
even relatively novice users can create interactive, professional quality

Using now() function in instance data

I've been attempting to use the now() function to populate an element with
today's date, however the instance data is loaded from an external source
and I can't seem to set it so that as the data is read in the now function
is invoked and the xsd:date is populated with the current date.

Is there something obvious I'm missing?

Thanks,

Gary

Svar: Using now() function in instance data

Hi Gary,

You could do:

  <xforms:model>
    <xforms:setvalue ref="/point to yout xsd:date node" value="now()"
ev:event="xforms-ready"/>

Then the node will be updated after the external source has been read
and the node will be editable from the UI. If the node should have the
now() value staticly you could make a bind

  <xforms:bind nodeset="/point to yout xsd:date node"
calculate="now()"/>

The it will always have the datetime from when the latest xforms-rebuild
event occured.

Best regards,
David

>>> Gary Stewart <gary <at> deltagreen.co.uk> 18-03-04 7:11 >>>

I've been attempting to use the now() function to populate an element
with
today's date, however the instance data is loaded from an external
source
and I can't seem to set it so that as the data is read in the now
function

Discussion of XForms on Oasis LegalXML list

Hello everyone,

A thread has just begun on the LegalXML list at Oasis, on whether XForms
is suitable for managing their mark-up:

 
<http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/legalxml-econtracts/200403/msg0000
4.html>

A white paper is linked to which is quite substantial - the author has
highlighted a number of the key points of XForms -  and I would
recommend it as a thought-provoking document to anyone currently
evaluating the use of XForms for their sector.

Regards,

Mark

Mark Birbeck
CEO and CTO
x-port.net Ltd.

Download our XForms processor from
http://www.formsPlayer.com/

RE: Adobe Forms Designer

Debugging forms

Greetings all.

I've been having a discussion today with an associate who uses XML a lot.  
During our conversation, I rambled on about the difficulties I've been having 
while I'm both learning XPath and XForms and writing a form.

One of the difficulties I'm having is "debugging" my various XPath 
expressions.  One of the errors I get a LOT is my instance data not being 
"valid." This error means I can't write even invlid XML to look at and "fix."

I realize I'm quite stuck in my ways (I've been programming for over 22 
years.) and some habits (like debugging) are hard to break.  What I'm hoping 
for is a little advice from the "experts" on the list as to better ways to 
debug using XForms and XPath.  (Please note that I've looked at XFormation 
and found that, while its a great tool, I can't get it to work for me....)

Thanks much for your time!

Bob Bateman
Software Developer
Sequoia Group LLC

RE: Debugging forms

As step one, try running your form through the XForms Validator

http://xformsinstitute.com/validator/

It has pretty good heuristics to detect many common problems.

.micah

-----Original Message-----
From: www-forms-request <at> w3.org [mailto:www-forms-request <at> w3.org]On
Behalf Of Robert Bateman
Sent: Monday, March 22, 2004 3:10 PM
To: www-forms <at> w3.org
Subject: Debugging forms

Greetings all.

I've been having a discussion today with an associate who uses XML a lot.  
During our conversation, I rambled on about the difficulties I've been
having 
while I'm both learning XPath and XForms and writing a form.

One of the difficulties I'm having is "debugging" my various XPath 
expressions.  One of the errors I get a LOT is my instance data not being 
"valid." This error means I can't write even invlid XML to look at and
"fix."

I realize I'm quite stuck in my ways (I've been programming for over 22 
years.) and some habits (like debugging) are hard to break.  What I'm hoping

for is a little advice from the "experts" on the list as to better ways to 
debug using XForms and XPath.  (Please note that I've looked at XFormation 
and found that, while its a great tool, I can't get it to work for me....)

Thanks much for your time!

Bob Bateman
Software Developer
Sequoia Group LLC