First Sample Orbeon Form Completed

Since we can't seem to easily get XForms out of OpenOffice (a real shame, since it's supposedly internally represented in XML) it's time to forge down the path of just manually writing an XForms application directly. This is mostly just an exercise to evaluate how easy it is.

As usual, the Vessel schema will be our punching bag.

This turned out to actually not be too hard. It is definitely tedious. If I were to write another app I would probably try to use an xml editor or something (closing <input> element after <input> element get's really old). It's also a little tricky to get the namespaces correct (and remember to use them explicitly) since you're using elements from xhtml, xforms, and sometimes extended (?) xforms (xxforms, whatever that is). And there is definitely some nuance to all of the bindings and interrelations. The only wisdom that I can think of from this day-long experience is to use the sample code liberally!

The resultant form with little-to-no attempt at aesthetics looks like this: And definitely note the instance viewer widget at the bottom. That's pretty cool and Orbeon give that to you for no effort. Nice.

I would say that this is a potential path for the Digital DR project to go down, but maybe not recommended. It would require quite a bit more expertise for the actual building (and maintenance) of XForms.