[Zope3-dev] Re: Schemas, Fields and Fieldsets

[Paul Everitt]

Steve Alexander wrote:
[snip]
> I was talking with Marius over lunch the other day, and we found that in 
> both our Zope 3 projects, we have many requirements for automatically 
> generated and validated forms that are not handled by the current Zope 3 
> implementations.
> 
> Our own implementations are somewhat crufty -- the emphasis being on 
> getting the job done, rather than making something suitable for general 
> use as part of a form/widget framework.
> 
> So, we agreed to spend some time writing down all of our requirements 
> for autogenerated forms, based on our recent experience and projected 
> furutre requirements. When we've got our set of requirements, we can 
> implement something that will meet these needs and offer it for 
> inclusion in Zope 3.

I hope we can give some attention to existing standards.  In this case, 
XForms is a possibility.  Cocoon is already using it for server-side 
rendering:

   http://xml.apache.org/cocoon/userdocs/concepts/xmlform.html
   http://www.xml.com/pub/a/ws/2003/01/29/cocoon-xforms.html
   http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/Forms/

While it might not be as good as something created by Zope 3, it's 
likely to be 1,000% better specified and communicated.  And of course, 
the work done by customers for form definitions won't be locked into 
using Zope.

--Paul