Cash Bounty for solution: Control to add block of read-only text (in Form Builder)

• Add a new control into Form Builder (basics of this are already shown below)
• Have that control inline editable via a textarea, so that static text can be entered (again, a starting point is shown below)
• When running the form, this text should be output as a static text block, not editable by the end-user
• The runtime output of the content will need to take account of line breaks in the text that was set, to allow multiple lines of information to be output

Simon Goodchild wrote

Hi all,

As I need a solution for this as soon as possible I'm now offering a cash
bounty of $100 for the first person who can send me a working set of changes
to enable the feature described below. Payment will be made by PayPal
immediately after I have been able to test and verify the solution. If
you're planning to try for the bounty can you drop me a quick email to let
me know that there's someone out there looking at it.

To clarify the requirements for what is needed to receive the bounty:

   - Add a new control into Form Builder (basics of this are already shown
   below)
   - Have that control inline editable via a textarea, so that static text
   can be entered (again, a starting point is shown below)
   - When running the form, this text should be output as a static text
   block, not editable by the end-user
   - The runtime output of the content will need to take account of line
   breaks in the text that was set, to allow multiple lines of information to
   be output


Hope this is of interest to someone out there. You'll be helping me out, and
as the changes will be submitted back to the project as well you'll be
getting paid to help the community too!

Many thanks,

Simon

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Simon Goodchild <sgoodchild@gmail.com>
Date: 2009/8/7
Subject: Re: [ops-users] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Control to add block of
read-only text (in Form Builder)
To: ops-users@ow2.org


In case anyone has any ideas, below are the configuration entries I'm
currently using:

For the XBL definition of the new component:
   <xbl:binding id="fb-mloutput" element="xforms|mloutput">

       
       <metadata xmlns="http://orbeon.org/oxf/xml/form-builder">
           <display-name lang="en">Multi-line Text Output</display-name>
           <display-name lang="fr">Sortie texte</display-name>
           <icon lang="en">

<small-icon>/apps/fr/style/images/silk/text_align_left.png</small-icon>

<large-icon>/apps/fr/style/images/silk/text_align_left.png</large-icon>
           </icon>
           <datatype>xs:string</datatype>
           <template>
               <xforms:mloutput id="" ref="" xmlns="">
                   <xforms:label ref=""/>
                   <xforms:help ref=""/>
                   
                   <xforms:alert ref="$fr-resources/detail/labels/alert"/>
               </xforms:mloutput>
           </template>
       </metadata>
   </xbl:binding>

Within grid-cell-editor.xml to map the mloutput component to a
textarea for inplace editing:
<xforms:group ref="xforms:mloutput[not(@mediatype)]">
 
  <xforms:textarea id="fb-xforms-mloutput-text-input"
ref="$instance-holder" appearance="fr:in-place" incremental="false" />
</xforms:group>


The results from these changes are that the new control appears in the
left menu, and correctly invokes the inplace editing using a textarea.
The problem comes when you preview the form, where nothing is
displayed in the block for that control. I think it must be a problem
with a lack of a binding to view the output outside of the form
builder, but I don't know enough about how things are configured to be
able to trace where to add this.

One thing I've noted is that the standard fb-output control is mapped
to an xforms:output element, whereas I have defined my own mloutput
element. Maybe this is the wrong way to do it, but I can't find a way
to map the textarea and normal output control together.

Any help would be much appeciated.

Simon


2009/8/2 Simon Goodchild <sgoodchild@gmail.com>:
> Hi Erik,
>
> It does appear in the Form Builder interface (in the compenent menu on
> the left and within the actual builder), and allows me to view/edit
> the text that is displayed. But when I save and preview the form I
> just get a blank space where that component should appear. All the
> other components in my test form appear around this, so I just get a
> blank space in the form.
>
> I can provide the source for the changes I have made if that helps - I
> was going to contribute it back to the project once it's working
> anyway.
>
> Many thanks,
>
> Simon
>
> 2009/8/2 Erik Bruchez <ebruchez@gmail.com>:
>> Simon,
>>
>> Does your component appears in the Form Builder toolbox?
>>
>> It should also work at runtime then!
>>
>> -Erik
>>
>> On Fri, Jul 31, 2009 at 6:40 AM, Simon Goodchild<sgoodchild@gmail.com>
wrote:
>>> Thanks for the hint Erik. I now how the new group defined within
>>> grid-cell-editor.xml, an my custom XBL component setup, so that I can
>>> add the control in using the Form Builder. The textarea correctly
>>> appears in the formbuilder for editing, but there is nothing displayed
>>> when I actually test the form output. I'm assuming there's another
>>> config file somewhere whih will map my new component to a view whe the
>>> form is run, but haven't found anything yet. Any ideas to help me do
>>> this?
>>>
>>> Many thanks,
>>>
>>> Simon
>>>
>>> 2009/7/28 Erik Bruchez <ebruchez@gmail.com>:
>>>> I don't think it's *very* difficult to do, but again it requires a
>>>> change to Form Builder. If you look at grid-cell-editor.xml in the
>>>> source, you will see the following match for the text output control:
>>>>
>>>> <xforms:group ref="xforms:output[not(@mediatype)]">
>>>>
>>>> This is where Form Builder decides to place an input field to edit the
text.
>>>>
>>>> Something similar would be needed to place a textarea for your control.
>>>>
>>>> -Erik
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, Jul 21, 2009 at 1:00 PM, Simon Goodchild<sgoodchild@gmail.com>
wrote:
>>>>> Yes, I was thinking that a simple textarea was all that would be
>>>>> needed on the Form Builder side, so I just need a way to transform
>>>>> that content into a static text block in the generated form. I tried
>>>>> doing this using an xsl transformation in a new XBL component, but
>>>>> couldn't find a way to retrieve the content from the textarea for
>>>>> display. I was hoping it would be fairly easy to do, as the 'Text
>>>>> Output' control is doing almost the same thing with a text field, but
>>>>> maybe it's more difficult :-)
>>>>>
>>>>> Simon
>>>>>
>>>>> 2009/7/21 Erik Bruchez <ebruchez@orbeon.com>:
>>>>>> Simon,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Currently, XBL components do not actually have a WYSIWYG appearance
in
>>>>>> Form Builder itself, so I think this will require a change to Form
>>>>>> Builder, because you will want a textarea to enter the text, right?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> -Erik
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Tue, Jul 21, 2009 at 9:58 AM, Simon Goodchild<sgoodchild@gmail.com>
wrote:
>>>>>>> Hi,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I'm building a solution using the Form Builder, and need my
end-users
>>>>>>> to be able to add blocks of read-only descriptive text to the forms
>>>>>>> they create. None of the standard controls seem to give this option
-
>>>>>>> the 'Text Output' control only allows 1 line of text, and making the
>>>>>>> standard 'Multi-Line Text' control read-only isn't very
user-friendly.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I've tried creating my own control in XBL (baed on the Multi-Line
Text
>>>>>>> control), but have had a lot of trouble with it and am not sure if
>>>>>>> there is a better way.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Soes anyone have any suggestions or examples of how I might do this?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Thanks for your help,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Simon
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> --
>>>>>>> You receive this message as a subscriber of the ops-users@ow2.orgmailing list.
>>>>>>> To unsubscribe: mailto:ops-users-unsubscribe@ow2.org
>>>>>>> For general help: mailto:sympa@ow2.org?subject=help
>>>>>>> OW2 mailing lists service home page: http://www.ow2.org/wws
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> You receive this message as a subscriber of the ops-users@ow2.orgmailing list.
>>>>>> To unsubscribe: mailto:ops-users-unsubscribe@ow2.org
>>>>>> For general help: mailto:sympa@ow2.org?subject=help
>>>>>> OW2 mailing lists service home page: http://www.ow2.org/wws
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> You receive this message as a subscriber of the ops-users@ow2.orgmailing list.
>>>>> To unsubscribe: mailto:ops-users-unsubscribe@ow2.org
>>>>> For general help: mailto:sympa@ow2.org?subject=help
>>>>> OW2 mailing lists service home page: http://www.ow2.org/wws
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> You receive this message as a subscriber of the ops-users@ow2.orgmailing list.
>>>> To unsubscribe: mailto:ops-users-unsubscribe@ow2.org
>>>> For general help: mailto:sympa@ow2.org?subject=help
>>>> OW2 mailing lists service home page: http://www.ow2.org/wws
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> You receive this message as a subscriber of the ops-users@ow2.orgmailing list.
>>> To unsubscribe: mailto:ops-users-unsubscribe@ow2.org
>>> For general help: mailto:sympa@ow2.org?subject=help
>>> OW2 mailing lists service home page: http://www.ow2.org/wws
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> You receive this message as a subscriber of the ops-users@ow2.org mailing
list.
>> To unsubscribe: mailto:ops-users-unsubscribe@ow2.org
>> For general help: mailto:sympa@ow2.org?subject=help
>> OW2 mailing lists service home page: http://www.ow2.org/wws
>>
>>
>


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• The form creator needs to remember to set the readonly property, which isn't very user-friendly compared with the rest of Form Builder
• The text comes out in a textarea on the published form too, when I would like it to be static text, like the existing 'Text Output' component

Simon Goodchild wrote

Hi all,

As I need a solution for this as soon as possible I'm now offering a cashHi,
bounty of $100 for the first person who can send me a working set of changes
to enable the feature described below. Payment will be made by PayPal
immediately after I have been able to test and verify the solution. If
you're planning to try for the bounty can you drop me a quick email to let
me know that there's someone out there looking at it.

To clarify the requirements for what is needed to receive the bounty:

   - Add a new control into Form Builder (basics of this are already shown
   below)
   - Have that control inline editable via a textarea, so that static text
   can be entered (again, a starting point is shown below)
   - When running the form, this text should be output as a static text
   block, not editable by the end-user
   - The runtime output of the content will need to take account of line
   breaks in the text that was set, to allow multiple lines of information to
   be output


Hope this is of interest to someone out there. You'll be helping me out, and
as the changes will be submitted back to the project as well you'll be
getting paid to help the community too!

Many thanks,

Simon

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Simon Goodchild <sgoodchild@gmail.com>
Date: 2009/8/7
Subject: Re: [ops-users] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Control to add block of
read-only text (in Form Builder)
To: ops-users@ow2.org


In case anyone has any ideas, below are the configuration entries I'm
currently using:

For the XBL definition of the new component:
   <xbl:binding id="fb-mloutput" element="xforms|mloutput">

       
       <metadata xmlns="http://orbeon.org/oxf/xml/form-builder">
           <display-name lang="en">Multi-line Text Output</display-name>
           <display-name lang="fr">Sortie texte</display-name>
           <icon lang="en">

<small-icon>/apps/fr/style/images/silk/text_align_left.png</small-icon>

<large-icon>/apps/fr/style/images/silk/text_align_left.png</large-icon>
           </icon>
           <datatype>xs:string</datatype>
           <template>
               <xforms:mloutput id="" ref="" xmlns="">
                   <xforms:label ref=""/>
                   <xforms:help ref=""/>
                   
                   <xforms:alert ref="$fr-resources/detail/labels/alert"/>
               </xforms:mloutput>
           </template>
       </metadata>
   </xbl:binding>

Within grid-cell-editor.xml to map the mloutput component to a
textarea for inplace editing:
<xforms:group ref="xforms:mloutput[not(@mediatype)]">
 
  <xforms:textarea id="fb-xforms-mloutput-text-input"
ref="$instance-holder" appearance="fr:in-place" incremental="false" />
</xforms:group>


The results from these changes are that the new control appears in the
left menu, and correctly invokes the inplace editing using a textarea.
The problem comes when you preview the form, where nothing is
displayed in the block for that control. I think it must be a problem
with a lack of a binding to view the output outside of the form
builder, but I don't know enough about how things are configured to be
able to trace where to add this.

One thing I've noted is that the standard fb-output control is mapped
to an xforms:output element, whereas I have defined my own mloutput
element. Maybe this is the wrong way to do it, but I can't find a way
to map the textarea and normal output control together.

Any help would be much appeciated.

Simon


2009/8/2 Simon Goodchild <sgoodchild@gmail.com>:
> Hi Erik,
>
> It does appear in the Form Builder interface (in the compenent menu on
> the left and within the actual builder), and allows me to view/edit
> the text that is displayed. But when I save and preview the form I
> just get a blank space where that component should appear. All the
> other components in my test form appear around this, so I just get a
> blank space in the form.
>
> I can provide the source for the changes I have made if that helps - I
> was going to contribute it back to the project once it's working
> anyway.
>
> Many thanks,
>
> Simon
>
> 2009/8/2 Erik Bruchez <ebruchez@gmail.com>:
>> Simon,
>>
>> Does your component appears in the Form Builder toolbox?
>>
>> It should also work at runtime then!
>>
>> -Erik
>>
>> On Fri, Jul 31, 2009 at 6:40 AM, Simon Goodchild<sgoodchild@gmail.com>
wrote:
>>> Thanks for the hint Erik. I now how the new group defined within
>>> grid-cell-editor.xml, an my custom XBL component setup, so that I can
>>> add the control in using the Form Builder. The textarea correctly
>>> appears in the formbuilder for editing, but there is nothing displayed
>>> when I actually test the form output. I'm assuming there's another
>>> config file somewhere whih will map my new component to a view whe the
>>> form is run, but haven't found anything yet. Any ideas to help me do
>>> this?
>>>
>>> Many thanks,
>>>
>>> Simon
>>>
>>> 2009/7/28 Erik Bruchez <ebruchez@gmail.com>:
>>>> I don't think it's *very* difficult to do, but again it requires a
>>>> change to Form Builder. If you look at grid-cell-editor.xml in the
>>>> source, you will see the following match for the text output control:
>>>>
>>>> <xforms:group ref="xforms:output[not(@mediatype)]">
>>>>
>>>> This is where Form Builder decides to place an input field to edit the
text.
>>>>
>>>> Something similar would be needed to place a textarea for your control.
>>>>
>>>> -Erik
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, Jul 21, 2009 at 1:00 PM, Simon Goodchild<sgoodchild@gmail.com>
wrote:
>>>>> Yes, I was thinking that a simple textarea was all that would be
>>>>> needed on the Form Builder side, so I just need a way to transform
>>>>> that content into a static text block in the generated form. I tried
>>>>> doing this using an xsl transformation in a new XBL component, but
>>>>> couldn't find a way to retrieve the content from the textarea for
>>>>> display. I was hoping it would be fairly easy to do, as the 'Text
>>>>> Output' control is doing almost the same thing with a text field, but
>>>>> maybe it's more difficult :-)
>>>>>
>>>>> Simon
>>>>>
>>>>> 2009/7/21 Erik Bruchez <ebruchez@orbeon.com>:
>>>>>> Simon,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Currently, XBL components do not actually have a WYSIWYG appearance
in
>>>>>> Form Builder itself, so I think this will require a change to Form
>>>>>> Builder, because you will want a textarea to enter the text, right?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> -Erik
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Tue, Jul 21, 2009 at 9:58 AM, Simon Goodchild<sgoodchild@gmail.com>
wrote:
>>>>>>> Hi,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I'm building a solution using the Form Builder, and need my
end-users
>>>>>>> to be able to add blocks of read-only descriptive text to the forms
>>>>>>> they create. None of the standard controls seem to give this option
-
>>>>>>> the 'Text Output' control only allows 1 line of text, and making the
>>>>>>> standard 'Multi-Line Text' control read-only isn't very
user-friendly.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I've tried creating my own control in XBL (baed on the Multi-Line
Text
>>>>>>> control), but have had a lot of trouble with it and am not sure if
>>>>>>> there is a better way.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Soes anyone have any suggestions or examples of how I might do this?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Thanks for your help,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Simon
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> --
>>>>>>> You receive this message as a subscriber of the ops-users@ow2.orgmailing list.
>>>>>>> To unsubscribe: mailto:ops-users-unsubscribe@ow2.org
>>>>>>> For general help: mailto:sympa@ow2.org?subject=help
>>>>>>> OW2 mailing lists service home page: http://www.ow2.org/wws
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> You receive this message as a subscriber of the ops-users@ow2.orgmailing list.
>>>>>> To unsubscribe: mailto:ops-users-unsubscribe@ow2.org
>>>>>> For general help: mailto:sympa@ow2.org?subject=help
>>>>>> OW2 mailing lists service home page: http://www.ow2.org/wws
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> You receive this message as a subscriber of the ops-users@ow2.orgmailing list.
>>>>> To unsubscribe: mailto:ops-users-unsubscribe@ow2.org
>>>>> For general help: mailto:sympa@ow2.org?subject=help
>>>>> OW2 mailing lists service home page: http://www.ow2.org/wws
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> You receive this message as a subscriber of the ops-users@ow2.orgmailing list.
>>>> To unsubscribe: mailto:ops-users-unsubscribe@ow2.org
>>>> For general help: mailto:sympa@ow2.org?subject=help
>>>> OW2 mailing lists service home page: http://www.ow2.org/wws
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> You receive this message as a subscriber of the ops-users@ow2.orgmailing list.
>>> To unsubscribe: mailto:ops-users-unsubscribe@ow2.org
>>> For general help: mailto:sympa@ow2.org?subject=help
>>> OW2 mailing lists service home page: http://www.ow2.org/wws
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> You receive this message as a subscriber of the ops-users@ow2.org mailing
list.
>> To unsubscribe: mailto:ops-users-unsubscribe@ow2.org
>> For general help: mailto:sympa@ow2.org?subject=help
>> OW2 mailing lists service home page: http://www.ow2.org/wws
>>
>>
>


--
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For general help: mailto:sympa@ow2.org?subject=help
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