Complex & dynamic forms: what to do?

Hi list,

This might be more of a general XForms question than an Orbeon question.
I'll post it here anyway, hoping to get advice on the 'right path' to
choose.

For creating user centric editing capabilities on top of GeoNetwork Open
Source (a metadata harvesting and serving application), we chose to go
down the XForms path.

We're trying to generate the XForms form from an internal representation
in GeoNetwork that reflects the rules and cardinalities, etc. From a
template XML file our form needs to be able to use template snippets
when elements are added (either through a service or pre-baked in the
form). These snippets can reference other snippets too. The template
snippets will be used for insert and repeat actions.

First of all: is it a smart idea to prefill all possible template
instance data when generating the XForm or would it be smarter to
request snippets when necessary using a so called 'snippet service'
(that we have in place)?

Second: what would be a good way to include some template instances into
other template instances?

Third: For a number of template instances used, we'd like to create
temporary data instances that can be references during the filling out
of the form. At the moment of submission all needs to be 'de-normalised'
and dereferenced in the main instance (we can create an XSL for that).

Fourth: is there an application out there that tries to achieve similar
functionality that we need and that we can build upon?

How can we achieve the above staying as close to XForms 1.0 as possible
and using as little of Orbeon's extensions? We want to be able to have
other XForms implementations use our forms as well, even though Orbeon
will most probably be the main interface.

Hopefully this mail is not too vague or too verbose to be read.

Regards, Roald




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Roald,

On Tue, Jun 3, 2008 at 4:15 AM, Roald de Wit <[hidden email]> wrote:
> We're trying to generate the XForms form from an internal representation in
> GeoNetwork that reflects the rules and cardinalities, etc. From a template
> XML file our form needs to be able to use template snippets when elements
> are added (either through a service or pre-baked in the form). These
> snippets can reference other snippets too. The template snippets will be
> used for insert and repeat actions.

I am not sure to follow. Do those snippets contain XML that
corresponds to the internal representation in GeoNetwork (i.e. part of
an XForms instance), or do the contain view elements (controls,
XHTML)? Maybe an example would help.

Alex
--
Orbeon Forms - Web 2.0 Forms, open-source, for the Enterprise
Orbeon's Blog: http://www.orbeon.com/blog/
Personal Blog: http://avernet.blogspot.com/
Twitter - http://twitter.com/avernet


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Hi Alex,

On Thu, 2008-06-05 at 12:04 +0930, Alessandro Vernet wrote:
> I am not sure to follow. Do those snippets contain XML that
> corresponds to the internal representation in GeoNetwork (i.e. part of
> an XForms instance), or do the contain view elements (controls,
> XHTML)? Maybe an example would help.

That email that I sent was very abstract and confusing. I'm happy that I
got a reply at all. Thanks for that! :-)

We've got a rough design in the following diagram: [1]. As you can see,
the XForm is still a black box: it's not fully clear yet what will
happen inside.

I have to say my knowledge of XForms is quite minimal and slowly growing
during our project. Now, I'm starting to realise:
- it is not easy to dynamically change the 'view' (XHTML and controls).
That means that all controls must be in place when the XForms document
is loaded. (Although I assume it is technically possible to use one
XForm to build another, or even using 2 models in one XForm)
- one can dynamically request new instances (snippets) and insert those
into the main instance (the full metadata document).

In order to build this form we need to:
- prebuild the view based upon a fully filled out metadata record (using
XSLT to convert the template coming out of GeoNetwork to a set of
controls and 'bind's. This is seems to be going well, even though it is
a lot of work
- have a set of template instances that will be used to insert into the
main instance (for building up the record).

I guess the main question at the moment is: is it possible to
dynamically create instances and bindings within the XForm that will be
used as templates for inserting nodes into our main instance?

Thanks, Roald

[1]
http://trac.osgeo.org/geonetwork/attachment/wiki/UserCentricGUI/GeonetworkUI%20Design%20Overview-sg-v0.2.png

>
> Alex
> --
> Orbeon Forms - Web 2.0 Forms, open-source, for the Enterprise
> Orbeon's Blog: http://www.orbeon.com/blog/
> Personal Blog: http://avernet.blogspot.com/
> Twitter - http://twitter.com/avernet
--
Roald de Wit
Software Engineer
[hidden email]

Commercial Support for Open Source GIS Software
http://lisasoft.com/LISAsoft/SupportedProducts/



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Hi All,
        I need to halt the submit action if the validation fails in the
xforms. Is there any built in mechanism to retain the page without
refresh, on submitting the page with validation error?

In the submission element it is like a message can be shown on
xforms-submit-error. But after that the page is getting refreshed.

Anyone please help. It is an urgent requirement. I am very new to this
technology. If you can help me with sample codes then that would be even
better.

Thanks in advance.


Regards,
Kiran Thankaraj


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Hi Kiran,

> I need to halt the submit action if the validation fails in the
> xforms. Is there any built in mechanism to retain the page without
> refresh, on submitting the page with validation error?
>
> In the submission element it is like a message can be shown on
> xforms-submit-error. But after that the page is getting refreshed.

a possible solution could be to add a replace="none" attribute to the
xforms:submission element, and load a new page only if the
xforms-submit-done event is received:

<xforms:submission id="save" method="post" replace="none" action="/save">
     <xforms:action ev:event="xforms-submit-error">
         <xforms:message level="modal">Error!</xforms:message>
     </xforms:action>
     <xforms:action ev:event="xforms-submit-done">
         <xforms:message level="modal">Success!</xforms:message>
         <xforms:load resource="/summary" />
     </xforms:action>
</xforms:submission>


HTH
florian




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Already I am using replace="none" attribute in the submission element.

Anyone knows how to retain the page without refresh, when the validation
failed on submission?

Whatever the user has entered is lost since the page is getting
reloaded. I think most of you have implemented this thing in your
application, right?

Can anyone explain this with a sample code? The below mentioned one
didn't work.

Waiting for your kind reply

Regards,
Kiran Thankaraj



------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------

-----Original Message-----
From: Florian Schmitt [mailto:[hidden email]]
Sent: Thursday, June 05, 2008 2:00 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: [ops-users] Re: Cancel submit action- Urgent Requirement

Hi Kiran,

> I need to halt the submit action if the validation fails in the
> xforms. Is there any built in mechanism to retain the page without
> refresh, on submitting the page with validation error?
>
> In the submission element it is like a message can be shown on
> xforms-submit-error. But after that the page is getting refreshed.

a possible solution could be to add a replace="none" attribute to the
xforms:submission element, and load a new page only if the
xforms-submit-done event is received:

<xforms:submission id="save" method="post" replace="none"
action="/save">
     <xforms:action ev:event="xforms-submit-error">
         <xforms:message level="modal">Error!</xforms:message>
     </xforms:action>
     <xforms:action ev:event="xforms-submit-done">
         <xforms:message level="modal">Success!</xforms:message>
         <xforms:load resource="/summary" />
     </xforms:action>
</xforms:submission>


HTH
florian




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Hi Kiran,

> Whatever the user has entered is lost since the page is getting
> reloaded. I think most of you have implemented this thing in your
> application, right?

> Can anyone explain this with a sample code? The below mentioned one
> didn't work.

i'm sorry that my suggestion didn't work, but i'm not sure why it
doesn't work for you. I'm using that code in my own OF app, and there's
no refresh of the page or loss of data entered if there's a validation
error. Maybe you could construct a little example showing the behaviour
you described?

Florian




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Thank You Florian,

Thank you for your response.

I am very glad to inform you that I've handled this issue in another way
where I could cancel the submit action through script.

In the xforms-submit-error event I made a flag true indicating the form
error. Submit was called according to that flag. Now it is working fine.


Regards,
Kiran Thankaraj


-----Original Message-----
From: Florian Schmitt [mailto:[hidden email]]
Sent: Friday, June 06, 2008 12:45 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: [ops-users] Re: RE: Re: Cancel submit action- Urgent
Requirement

Hi Kiran,

> Whatever the user has entered is lost since the page is getting
> reloaded. I think most of you have implemented this thing in your
> application, right?

> Can anyone explain this with a sample code? The below mentioned one
> didn't work.

i'm sorry that my suggestion didn't work, but i'm not sure why it
doesn't work for you. I'm using that code in my own OF app, and there's
no refresh of the page or loss of data entered if there's a validation
error. Maybe you could construct a little example showing the behaviour
you described?

Florian




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