Re: XForms - "Suspend and resume support"

In a message dated 29/04/2003 09:59:11 GMT Daylight Time, 
roland_merrick@uk.ibm.com writes:


> Greetings Andrew, XForms 1.0 has no explicit support for "Suspend and 
> Resume" so it is still a future requirement. 
> 
> It would be possible for an implementation to add some support for such a 
> feature but general support would require consideration of where the 
> suspended form would reside: local storage, server storage. Suspend at any 
> time or only at defined checkpoints? There are probably other issues to be 
> considered such as how the function might relate to the related subject of 
> offline form completion.

Hi Roland,

Thanks for the prompt response.

I guess there are several issues here, as you imply. In some scenarios it 
might be nice to "submit" (or should that be "save"?) a part-completed form 
to a server data store of some sort. Other scenarios would be local saving to 
submit the full data at some later time.

One of the issues that seems relevant if submitting to a server data store is 
the ability to keep the identity of the user bound to the identity of the 
data. And, of course, if XForms normally validates the data, a mechanism to 
indicate to the XForms processor that the (part) data isn't yet ready for 
validation.

For local saving there would need to be consideration of what a "form" is, in 
respect of the need to associate the correct visual appearance of the form 
while, presumably, overriding the default instance markup - so that the 
"saved data" constitutes the initial data to be copied to the "instance 
data".

Is saving / suspend and resume firmly on the agenda for XForms 2.0?

Andrew Watt