Frank, IBM has a very interesting open source XForms designer (Visual XForms Designer) released through IBM Alphaworks. http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/x-xfrmdesigner/
http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com/tech/vxd As it currently exists, the IBM Visual XForms Designer (VXD) is a plug-in for the Eclipse IDE version 3.2.x. Perhaps IBM could be persuaded to modify the IBM Visual XForms Designer (VXD) to work with OpenOffice.org Base and provide not only a form capability comparable to MS Access but also the ability to export to other XForms products providing even more upsizing paths including portals. OpenOffice.org Base already has a significant upsizing story in that it supports numerous backend server databases, and has the new Sun StarOffice Report Designer that works with the Pentaho/JFreeReport engine. In September, the OpenOffice.org community "announced that IBM will be joining the community to collaborate on the development of OpenOffice.orgsoftware." http://www.openoffice.org/press/ibm_press_release.html IBM is shipping Lotus Symphony which is based on a 1.x version of OpenOffice.org that did not include Base. http://symphony.lotus.com/software/lotus/symphony/home.jspa On Nov 13, 2007 3:24 AM, Frank Schönheit - Sun Microsystems Germany < [EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > However, that's effectively the only connection between XForms and Base. > There were never plans to connect both worlds. Which doesn't mean the > connection would not make sense - the opposite is true -, but simply > that the whole "XForms in OOo" story never got the resources and > engagement which would have been necessary to finish it. > > That's the current state: The implementation of some rudiments was > finished, but no further ideas/visions have been developed, not to > mention spending precious UX/developer time for it. > > You might regret this (as do I in some sense, since the topic itself is > promising), but effectively, there was a decision to focus on other and > more important things. A correct decision, in my opinion. > Perhaps, but, if IBM were willing to do it... > > > 1. Is there a way to extract and save in uncompressed ASCII text format > the > > XFORMS stream or section from the WRITER file package? If one suceeded > in > > extracting the XFORMS how would it have to be modified for use in other > > XFORMS applications? How does one identify a specific instance of XFORMS > in > > an Open Document file? > > I am not sure at the moment how the data instance is named in the XML > stream (it's in content.xml IIRC), but you should easily be able to > check by creating an instance in the data navigator, and searching for > its name in the extracted content.xml. > > For the interoperability with other XForms applications, I am not deeply > enough involved with the topic to answer this (and I fear the people who > were are not with the project anymore). To my best knowledge, since > XForms really only describes things to be *embedded* into host XML > dialects, I am uncertain to which extent interoperability is generically > possible. The first link to the IBM Visual XForms Designer is an article with screenshots that shows it exporting ("rendering" ) to some of the other XForms products. "the Visual XForms Designer contains utilities (see Figure 9 <http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/x-xfrmdesigner/#figure9>) for converting your document into the appropriate format for any one of several renderers." and "The Visual XForms Designer provides another set of menu options for rendering the form in any of the renderers you have installed and configured on your local machine (see Figure 10<http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/x-xfrmdesigner/#figure10> )." According to the screenshots the renderers include: Chiba, FormFaces, FormPlayer and SideWinder. > > > > 2. Should there be an option to use the native XFORMS controls; or > should > > they always be overridden for compatibility with market leading office > > suite. Is there some way to balance compatibility with MS Access > controls > > and using native XFORMS controls(which would facilitate interoperability > > with other XForms applications)? > > Base's form controls are in no way designed for MSA interoperability. > (In fact, they were initially created long before there was a Base > application, when they were needed for StarOffice's Web Browser > functionality). So, the decision to re-use for XForms them had nothing > to do with MSA, but simply with what was there. > > Whether it makes sense to use the XForms syntax for describing controls > ... well, one thing is that XForms lacks things which are necessary > unless you have a layout manager. That is, XForms does not specify the > layout of your controls, this is the task of the renderer. Which means > we need to either wait for a new XForms spec, or implement a layout > manager for Writer controls. > > Second, XForms does not even specify the appearance of the controls - a > |select| element could be represent by radio buttons or by a list box, > this is again up to the renderer. Somewhat contradicting what you expect > in an office suite. Again, here we would need to find a solution first. > Some implementations use Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). Mozillas' sample XForms http://www.mozilla.org/projects/xforms/samples.html use SVG. Researchers at the Helsinki University of Technology have not only experimented with XHTML and SVG, but SMIL (which is used in OpenOffice.orgImpress presentation software). "We have also found in our research that integration of XForms with XHTML, SMIL and SVG is feasible and will provide new usage scenarios for these languages." Prof. Petri Vuorimaa, Head of TML laboratory, Helsinki University of Technology, Finland http://www.w3.org/2002/11/xforms-cr-testimonial http://www.xsmiles.org/presentations/conference/xforms_basic_MSE2004.pdf http://www.xsmiles.org/presentations/workshop/xforms.pdf > Third, doing this would require an extension to the ODF spec. Not a > problem, but simply one more thing on the list. > > Personally, I think an XSLT exporting an ODF to some other format might > be the better way. > > > All that said, it boils down to: XForms in OOo are not actively > developed at the moment. > > OpenOffice.org Base just added a new Report Designer/Report Engine and the addition of a strong forms capability would make Base a compelling development/prototyping tool Jim Callahan Orlando, FL
