XForms in OpenOffice 2.0

Hello All,

I'm thinking I would perhaps have been better to ask this more generally...

what do you use to create your XForms?

A plain text editor?
An XML-aware editor?
An XFORMS-aware editor?
OPS Studio in Eclipse?

What are the good and bad parts of what you are doing, and how does it mesh with developing for OPS?

Thanks again for any help/comments
Colin

On Nov 2, 2005, at 1:36 PM, Colin O'Brien wrote:

Hello All

I noticed the other day that OpenOffice 2.0 was now available for the Mac so I downloaded it to try out the XForms capabilities.

Has anyone taken a serious look at this?

I was impressed to see that File>New included the option for a new XForm.

But I wasn't too clear on what to do next.
Added a few fields (or so I thought) and tried saving it.
I thought OO2 native file formats were now XML, but they seemed to be binary still.
I could export it to xhtml, but the file didn't have any XForm content, so probably I hadn't made as much progress as I hoped in adding content to the document.

No problem I thought, I'll just open an existing XForms file, and see what that looks like in OO2.
Except that there was no explicit way I could find to open/import an XForms/xhtml file.
Everything I tried just ended up as a regular text document.

Has anyone had any better progress?
Any pointers on how to get something useful going would be much appreciated.

Regards
Colin

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Hello All,

I'm thinking I would perhaps have been better to ask this more generally...

what do you use to create your XForms?

A plain text editor?
An XML-aware editor?
An XFORMS-aware editor?
OPS Studio in Eclipse?

What are the good and bad parts of what you are doing, and how does it mesh with developing for OPS?

Thanks again for any help/comments
Colin

On Nov 2, 2005, at 1:36 PM, Colin O'Brien wrote:

Hello All

I noticed the other day that OpenOffice 2.0 was now available for the Mac so I downloaded it to try out the XForms capabilities.

Has anyone taken a serious look at this?

I was impressed to see that File>New included the option for a new XForm.

But I wasn't too clear on what to do next.
Added a few fields (or so I thought) and tried saving it.
I thought OO2 native file formats were now XML, but they seemed to be binary still.
I could export it to xhtml, but the file didn't have any XForm content, so probably I hadn't made as much progress as I hoped in adding content to the document.

No problem I thought, I'll just open an existing XForms file, and see what that looks like in OO2.
Except that there was no explicit way I could find to open/import an XForms/xhtml file.
Everything I tried just ended up as a regular text document.

Has anyone had any better progress?
Any pointers on how to get something useful going would be much appreciated.

Regards
Colin

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For general help: [hidden email]
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Colin & all:
another interesting option is the IBM XForms Generator:
http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com/tech/xfg
Its a component of the Emerging Technologies Toolkit (ETTK) that converts XSchema into XForms.
Runs under Eclipse 3.1 (not 3.2) and must use the 1.4.x JRE (not 1.5).
Havn't tried it with Orbeon yet but might give it a shot soon. If succesful, will make sure to document the procedure.
cheers,
Pascal

Colin O'Brien wrote:

Hello All,

I'm thinking I would perhaps have been better to ask this more generally...

what do you use to create your XForms?

A plain text editor?
An XML-aware editor?
An XFORMS-aware editor?
OPS Studio in Eclipse?

What are the good and bad parts of what you are doing, and how does it mesh with developing for OPS?

Thanks again for any help/comments
Colin

On Nov 2, 2005, at 1:36 PM, Colin O'Brien wrote:

Hello All

I noticed the other day that OpenOffice 2.0 was now available for the Mac so I downloaded it to try out the XForms capabilities.

Has anyone taken a serious look at this?

I was impressed to see that File>New included the option for a new XForm.

But I wasn't too clear on what to do next.
Added a few fields (or so I thought) and tried saving it.
I thought OO2 native file formats were now XML, but they seemed to be binary still.
I could export it to xhtml, but the file didn't have any XForm content, so probably I hadn't made as much progress as I hoped in adding content to the document.

No problem I thought, I'll just open an existing XForms file, and see what that looks like in OO2.
Except that there was no explicit way I could find to open/import an XForms/xhtml file.
Everything I tried just ended up as a regular text document.

Has anyone had any better progress?
Any pointers on how to get something useful going would be much appreciated.

Regards
Colin

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You receive this message as a subscriber of the [hidden email] mailing list.
To unsubscribe: [hidden email]
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Hi Shannon,

That sounds like a very nice tool, especially to get started. And
since XForms is being generated (instead of a mountain of procedural
code), it should be quite easy to modify and use as a starting point.

Do you think you could share a few screenshots from the UI provided by
the servlet and the actual result to give us a better idea of what you
are talking about?

Alex

On 11/3/05, Shannon Haworth [hidden email] wrote:
  

 I've built a tool that I could release as open-source.  It is a code
generator.

 The generator is written as a java servlet (a ugly hack that evolved from
something else, otherwise I would have released this already) that takes a
SQL query, and db connectivity info.   It contacts the database and
generates a result set.  The result set is then used to generate
XSLT/XPL/INSTANCE STUBS/XFORMS for the entire CRUD lifecycle. The necessary
xml files are packaged in a zip file (with a directory structure that begins
with the db table name) and sent back to the user.

 The generated code is basic but complete.  Two screens are generated, the
first is a list of records with add/edit/delete buttons.  The seconds is a
"edit" screen with save and cancel buttons.  All of the artwork is packaged,
so the zip-files are self-contained and can all be unzipped directly within
the resources directory.  The structure is such that they can co-exists.  Of
course the page-flow docs must be combined if you need to combine the code
from more than one table.

 The servlet code is embarrassing, however the results are really kinda of
cool and have cut my development time.  The real value is that it provides
my junior staff with a working starting point.  Which really cuts down on
the flailing around.  A whole lot can be accomplished with cut and paste.

 With a bit of work it could evolve into something quite sophisticated.

 Thoughts?

 Shannon


 Pascal Heus wrote:
 Colin & all:
 another interesting option is the IBM XForms Generator:
 http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com/tech/xfg
 Its a component of the Emerging Technologies Toolkit (ETTK) that converts
XSchema into XForms.
 Runs under Eclipse 3.1 (not 3.2) and must use the 1.4.x JRE (not 1.5).
 Havn't tried it with Orbeon yet but might give it a shot soon. If
succesful, will make sure to document the procedure.
 cheers,
 Pascal

 Colin O'Brien wrote:
Hello All,

 I'm thinking I would perhaps have been better to ask this more generally...

 what do you use to create your XForms?

 A plain text editor?
 An XML-aware editor?
 An XFORMS-aware editor?
 OPS Studio in Eclipse?

 What are the good and bad parts of what you are doing, and how does it mesh
with developing for OPS?

 Thanks again for any help/comments
 Colin

 On Nov 2, 2005, at 1:36 PM, Colin O'Brien wrote:


Hello All

 I noticed the other day that OpenOffice 2.0 was now available for the Mac
so I downloaded it to try out the XForms capabilities.

 Has anyone taken a serious look at this?

 I was impressed to see that File>New included the option for a new XForm.

 But I wasn't too clear on what to do next.
 Added a few fields (or so I thought) and tried saving it.
 I thought OO2 native file formats were now XML, but they seemed to be
binary still.
 I could export it to xhtml, but the file didn't have any XForm content, so
probably I hadn't made as much progress as I hoped in adding content to the
document.

 No problem I thought, I'll just open an existing XForms file, and see what
that looks like in OO2.
 Except that there was no explicit way I could find to open/import an
XForms/xhtml file.
 Everything I tried just ended up as a regular text document.

 Has anyone had any better progress?
 Any pointers on how to get something useful going would be much
appreciated.

 Regards
 Colin


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