Mark
My experience shows that given the tab approach the client will use it 101X,
as I mentioned before I do not see why case control should not be treated
just as any other single node bind control. Perhaps the design of the
switch/case was not thorough enough?
"Is it definitely the case that the content of non-relevant groups have to
be in memory?" says who, it is up to the implementers to decide this.
Francisco
From: www-forms-request (AT) w3 (DOT) org [mailto:www-forms-request (AT) w3 (DOT) org] Behalf
Mark Seaborne
Sent: 18 August 2006 11:53
To: www-forms
Subject: Re: Switch case construct
Francisco,
But case doesn't take single node binding, and it isn't a form control. The
only benefit I can see that giving case single node binding, etc is that you
can set the relevance of a case rather than the relevance of a trigger with
a toggle action pointing at the case. Logically your form still consists of
a set of cases with triggers used to toggle between them.
Is it definitely the case that the content of non-relevant groups have to be
in memory? It might be worth asking for clarification on that from the
working group.
John Boyer pointed out
() that the
working group has discussed this and come to a resolution about the
implications of a case not being selected. Is this likely to satisfy your
own requirement only to have to load into memory as much of the form as is
in active cases (I know of at least 1 implementation that already does
this)? If it does then I see no reason why you couldn't just use:
<xf:trigger ref="instance('dojo')/wf1">
<xf:label>Section-I</xf:label>
<xforms:action ev:event="DMActivate"
<xf:message level="modal">case 1 select event</xf:message>
<xf:toggle case="Section-I"/>
</xforms:action>
</xf:trigger>
<xf:switch>
<xf:case id="Section-I">
etc
with CSS to style your triggers as the trigger portion of tabs.
All the best
Mark
18 Aug 2006, at 10:43, Francisco Monteiro wrote:
Mark,
I am using "conventional" model-based switching , if you look at the xforms
source you will see that the xf:case is used just as a normal single node
binding control.
When I set about writing the XForms processor I looked at what was
available, looked at design patterns currently used by my clients and
BPEL/Workflow and then set about creating these composite controls, nobody
does creating of composite controls better then Dojo and Yahoo!UI.
The inner details of why I used tabswitch case is that for very large forms
we only need to parse what workflow the client wants, with group I would
have to parse the whole forms!
Look at the XForms source and it answers many of your other questions.
I have a "pattern" documentation and some clients use it for Templating and
writing special composite controls.
Thanks
Francisco
From: www-forms-request (AT) w3 (DOT) org [mailto:www-forms-request (AT) w3 (DOT) org] Behalf
Mark Seaborne
Sent: 18 August 2006 10:14
To: www-forms
Subject: Re: Switch case construct
Francisco,
Surely the effect you achieve in your form, of using model based relevance
to determine which cases are potentially viewable by the user, is already
achievable using "conventional" model-based switching? You could use group
instead of switch/case, or, if you were using switch/case as currently
defined (rather than your own tabswitch/case) you would just bind triggers
styled to look like tabs to you model. Either way the same effect is
achieved.
The thing that stands out about your tabswitch element is that it manages
case selection directly without the need for some other mechanism, such as
triggers. That is rather neat. So if switch was to be changed to allow this
kind of @appearance="tabbed" (for example) then each case would
automatically get its own trigger, that would need to behave just like a
normal trigger, I guess with a default action of toggle to its parent case,
triggered by DMActivate.
I think that this might fall under the category of making common design
patterns easy for authors and could be considered by the WG.
The simplest pattern achievable like this is to say all cases would be
relevant. If you wanted the mechanism to support relevance then you would
either need ref/bind on case.
But then where would the auto-generated trigger get its label, etc from?
If you have to add to case single node binding, label, help, hint and action
it is arguable that you might as easily wrap them in a trigger element as
described above, which would give more flexibility with styling, etc.
So maybe switch/case is alright after all? I'm not sure.
All the best
Mark
18 Aug 2006, at 08:22, Francisco Monteiro wrote:
My take on the whole switch-case construct is that it is too restrictive.
The case element is a control so all rules about Xforms control should apply
by this I mean enabled, disabled etc. When you are doing workflow and have
tabbed switch, the case element is viewed as a "section" just as paper forms
are written today.
I have a small example here which demonstrates what I am implying and it can
be viewed here
<>
Most clients I have like it this way, they see up front what is enabled or
disabled. Xforms must be viewed in terms of workflow, anything which helps
users have a easy experience should be encouraged.
Regards
Francisco

Francisco,

, I have had a go at reproducing your demo using just XForms 1.0
(see attached form) and I now appreciate that at the very least it
isn't clear how to reproduce it exactly (I couldn't anyway, though
someone cleverer than me might manage it).

For those who haven't looked, Francisco's form allows a user to
select four pre-defined subsets of cases inside a switch, which can
then be navigated through as tabs.

So there is 1 switch with four cases. Setting a value from a select1
makes a different predefined subset of the cases relevant and sets
focus to the first of that subset.

The key thing I couldn't manage was using the select1 to both
restrict the cases that a user could select _and_ toggle to the first
case of that selection.

The first part is easy, I just used ref on a set of triggers with
toggle actions. However, this could leave a toggle selected that is
now outside the current set of valid cases. So I needed to toggle to
the first of the valid set of cases, and without the ability to
dynamically assign the case to toggle to I couldn't see how to
achieve this from a select1.

Consequently I had to use four triggers, which I have taken the
bother to style loosely like a select1 (I could have made it look
more convincing if I could have been bothered).

A previous thread indicates that XForms will support dynamic
selection of a case to toggle to which might solve the problem.

Apart from that problem I think I was able to reproduce the
functionality of your test form. I am using the latest Firefox build
to test and that does fire the events in each case somewhat
erratically, which I will put down to the fact that it isn't finished
(to be fair your form also gets events confused eventually and
freezes Firefox). Firefox also paints the border of each case whether
or not it is selected, which creates an interesting visual effect :-)

Have I missed anything? I didn't bother to change the default styling
of non-relevant triggers to be visible with a greyed out appearance.

All the best

Mark

18 Aug 2006, at 12:09, Francisco Monteiro wrote:

Mark

My experience shows that given the tab approach the client will use
it 101X, as I mentioned before I do not see why case control should
not be treated just as any other single node bind control. Perhaps
the design of the switch/case was not thorough enough?

"Is it definitely the case that the content of non-relevant groups
have to be in memory?" says who, it is up to the implementers to
decide this.

Apologies, I didn't read the word "parse" in your posting. Doesn't
something have to parse an entire form to ensure that it is well-
formed XML before an XForms processor can get to work on it?

Francisco
--
From: www-forms-request (AT) w3 (DOT) org [mailto:www-forms-request (AT) w3 (DOT) org]
Behalf Mark Seaborne
Sent: 18 August 2006 11:53
To: www-forms
Subject: Re: Switch case construct

Francisco,

But case doesn't take single node binding, and it isn't a form
control. The only benefit I can see that giving case single node
binding, etc is that you can set the relevance of a case rather
than the relevance of a trigger with a toggle action pointing at
the case. Logically your form still consists of a set of cases with
triggers used to toggle between them.

Is it definitely the case that the content of non-relevant groups
have to be in memory? It might be worth asking for clarification on
that from the working group.

John Boyer pointed out (
forms/2006Aug/0059.html) that the working group has discussed this
and come to a resolution about the implications of a case not being
selected. Is this likely to satisfy your own requirement only to
have to load into memory as much of the form as is in active cases
(I know of at least 1 implementation that already does this)? If it
does then I see no reason why you couldn't just use:

<xf:trigger ref="instance('dojo')/wf1">
<xf:label>Section-I</xf:label>
<xforms:action ev:event="DMActivate">
<xf:message level="modal">case 1 select event</xf:message>
<xf:toggle case="Section-I"/>
</xforms:action>
</xf:trigger>

<xf:switch>
<xf:case id="Section-I">

etc

with CSS to style your triggers as the trigger portion of tabs.

All the best

Mark

18 Aug 2006, at 10:43, Francisco Monteiro wrote:
>
>Mark,
>I am using "conventional" model-based switching , if you look at
>the xforms source you will see that the xf:case is used just as a
>normal single node binding control.
>When I set about writing the XForms processor I looked at what was
>available, looked at design patterns currently used by my clients
>and BPEL/Workflow and then set about creating these composite
>controls, nobody does creating of composite controls better then
>Dojo and Yahoo!UI.
>The inner details of why I used tabswitch case is that for very
>large forms we only need to parse what workflow the client wants,
>with group I would have to parse the whole forms!
>Look at the XForms source and it answers many of your other
>questions.
>I have a "pattern" documentation and some clients use it for
>Templating and writing special composite controls.
>Thanks
>Francisco
>>
>From: www-forms-request (AT) w3 (DOT) org [mailto:www-forms-request (AT) w3 (DOT) org]
>Behalf Mark Seaborne
>Sent: 18 August 2006 10:14
>To: www-forms
>Subject: Re: Switch case construct
>>
>Francisco,
>>
>Surely the effect you achieve in your form, of using model based
>relevance to determine which cases are potentially viewable by the
>user, is already achievable using "conventional" model-based
>switching? You could use group instead of switch/case, or, if you
>were using switch/case as currently defined (rather than your own
>tabswitch/case) you would just bind triggers styled to look like
>tabs to you model. Either way the same effect is achieved.
>>
>The thing that stands out about your tabswitch element is that it
>manages case selection directly without the need for some other
>mechanism, such as triggers. That is rather neat. So if switch was
>to be changed to allow this kind of @appearance="tabbed" (for
>example) then each case would automatically get its own trigger,
>that would need to behave just like a normal trigger, I guess with
>a default action of toggle to its parent case, triggered by
>DMActivate.
>>
>I think that this might fall under the category of making common
>design patterns easy for authors and could be considered by the WG.
>>
>The simplest pattern achievable like this is to say all cases
>would be relevant. If you wanted the mechanism to support
>relevance then you would either need ref/bind on case.
>>
>But then where would the auto-generated trigger get its label, etc
>from?
>>
>If you have to add to case single node binding, label, help, hint
>and action it is arguable that you might as easily wrap them in a
>trigger element as described above, which would give more
>flexibility with styling, etc.
>>
>So maybe switch/case is alright after all? I'm not sure.
>>
>All the best
>>
>Mark
>>
>>
>18 Aug 2006, at 08:22, Francisco Monteiro wrote:
>>
My take on the whole switch-case construct is that it is too
restrictive. The case element is a control so all rules about
Xforms control should apply by this I mean enabled, disabled etc.
When you are doing workflow and have tabbed switch, the case
element is viewed as a "section" just as paper forms are written
today.
I have a small example here which demonstrates what I am implying
and it can be viewed here

Most clients I have like it this way, they see up front what is
enabled or disabled. Xforms must be viewed in terms of workflow,
anything which helps users have a easy experience should be
encouraged.
Regards
Francisco
>>
>

>
Apart from that problem I think I was able to reproduce the
functionality of your test form. I am using the latest Firefox
build to test and that does fire the events in each case somewhat
erratically, which I will put down to the fact that it isn't
finished (to be fair your form also gets events confused eventually
and freezes Firefox). Firefox also paints the border of each case
whether or not it is selected, which creates an interesting visual
effect :-)

Actually, I'm not sure I am being fair on Firefox's handling of
events in xforms:case, I think it is okay.

All the best

Mark