Hi,

 

I am doing a project in Orbeon and I need 'eForm' functionality. I was searching for a good tool with which we can design forms, publish it and view it in browser. IBM workplace forms designer is a good tool to design forms, but to view it in HTML, we need its server side component. And I could not find any free downloads of server component. So I thought of transforming the XFDL to Xforms, since XFDL already supports XForms. And thus integration with Orbeon would be easier. Not sure whether my decision is wise. Any advices are most welcome.

 

 - Jency

 

---

From: Tony Mobbs [mailto:[hidden email]]
Sent: Thursday, February 01, 2007 12:06 PM

To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [ops-users] XFDL Integration

 

Jency

I'm interested to know why you are moving from Workplace forms to Orbeon.  My employer is thinking about Workplace Forms but I'm an open source nut, so obviously favour Orbeon.   Can you give me some of your experience that may have made you want to switch?

Cheers
Tony

On 01/02/07, Jency Chackummoottil <[hidden email]> wrote:

Alex,

One difficulty I faced during the transformation of XFDL to XHTML using
XSLT is that in XFDL, we can set the datatype for an input field, its
min length, max length etc using a non-xform tag (<format>). Please
refer the attached XFDL document. But in xforms, we add this in
xforms:model using xforms:bind. So, using XSLT, we need to convert all
these constraints in the <format> tag in XFDL to the corresponding
xforms:bind attributes in XForms.

Another problem I faced is related to the alert icon. I have set some
constraints on certain fields and using XSLT, I placed all the controls
in correct position. But if a constraint failed, the alert icon is shown
at the top left corner.

Also, not all the controls are positioned with absolute coordinates. For
eg, the controls placed inside a xforms:repeat are not positioned using
absolute coordinates.

These are some of the unsolved difficulties I encounter while
transforming XFDL using XSLT.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance
Jency


-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of
Alessandro Vernet
Sent: Thursday, February 01, 2007 8:27 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [ops-users] XFDL Integration

Hi Jency,

So it seems that everything is positioned with absolute coordinates in
XFDL. This means that the file once converted in XHTML will mostly
likely do the same. In a certain way, that makes things simpler. Did
you encounter any particular difficulty while trying to transform XFDL
into XHTML with XSLT?

Alex

On 1/30/07, Jency Chackummoottil
<[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> Erik,
>
> I am attaching an XFDL along with the screen shot of the form (ie, how
> the form looks like when we run it using IBM Workplace Forms viewer).
> This XFDL has XForms controls for which it has non-xforms properties
> such as item location, datatype, etc. I need to convert this XFDL to
> XForms so that when I run it in Orbeon, I should get the same look and
> feel (with proper datatype, alignment and size of controls, background
> color etc). I have written an XSL to transform this, but it involves
> much coding and I could not do transformation for all the properties.
> Please find the attached XFDL and the screenshot of the form which
uses
> this XFDL.
>
> Your help would be much appreciated.
>
> Thanks
> Jency
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Erik Bruchez [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Erik
Bruchez
> Sent: Wednesday, January 24, 2007 4:01 PM
> To: [hidden email]
> Subject: Re: [ops-users] XFDL Integration
>
> Jency,
>
> As you noticed Orbeon Forms does not support XFDL, or even converting
> from XFDL to XHTML, out of the box.
>
> The big question to me is not so much whether to use XSLT or not to
> perform the conversion: there is a good chance that using XSLT,
> especially 2.0 , will give you all the flexibility you need to perform
> the conversion.
>
> But not knowing XFDL well, I can't tell you whether it is possible to
do
>
> a perfect conversion from XFDL + XForms to XHTML + XForms, what are
the
> trade-offs, etc.
>
> If you could send to the list a short but telling example of a very
> specific issue you are encountering, this could help.
>
> (And if you have trouble with this conversion and can't manage to go
> forward, remember that Orbeon provides support services and that we
> would be happy to help you.)
>
> -Erik
>
> Jency Chackummoottil wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> >
> >
> > I'm using IBM Workplace Forms Designer tool to create some eForms.
> > Workplace Forms are written in an XML syntax called XFDL (eXtensible
> > Forms Description Language), and support the XForms standard. Ie,
> > certain controls are written in xforms. My application is in orbeon.
I
>
> > need to convert this XFDL to XHTML + XForms so that I could run
> directly
> > in Orbeon. Now I have written an xpl which does an xsl transform to
> the
> > input XFDL so that only the required xforms tag are taken from the
> xfdl
> > and create an xhtml using those tags. But this involves a bit
> > complication, because XFDL has not only xforms controls, but also
some
>
> > tags like itemlocation, datatype etc too which does not have the
> xforms
> > namespace. So I feel writing an xsl transform to convert the whole
> XFDL
> > to XForms is complicated.
> >
> >
> >
> > Is there some way to do the same? Would you please provide me the
> sample
> > code too since I'm new to Orbeon.
> >
> >
> >
> > Thanks
> >
> > Jency
>
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> Orbeon Forms - Web Forms for the Enterprise Done the Right Way
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