Here is a summary of the Orbeon Forms developments for October/November 2009:
- Next release
- Orbeon Forms 3.7.2 is almost ready. Nightly builds are quite stable and we are almost ready to release!
- Web site and demos
- Form Builder screencast. We have just produced a screencast showing off Form Builder's basic features in 10 minutes. It doesn't show everything Form Builder and Form Runner can do yet, but it's a start. Feedback is welcome!
- New hosting. The Orbeon web
site and online demos
are now hosted on a much better server, and we have made a bunch of improvements to the web site. Please let us know if you have
any issues!
- Better demos landing page. The online demos landing page has been updated to better present the major Orbeon Forms forms and samples.
- Better XForms Controls demo. The XForms Controls demo has been improved and comes in two versions: a custom-built XForms Controls demo, and a Form Runner/Form Builder form.
- New Contact form. We have added a simple Contact form demo. The screencast shows how to build and deploy this form in about 10 minutes.
- Orbeon Forms components
- New reCAPTCHA XBL component. This a reusable CAPTCHA component based on the reCAPTCHA API. It was implemented in record time thanks to our support for XBL components.
- Improved autocomplete control. The autocomplete control has been enhanced to make a distinction between item label and value.
- Reusable Error Summary component. Our Error Summary feature is now a fully reusable component.
- New Alert Dialog component. The alert dialog allows you to build simple dialogs for those cases where you need to inform users of something that happened, or ask a question which can be answered by a yes or a no.
- Other Orbeon Forms bug-fixes and enhancements
- New function to evaluate AVTs. The xxforms:evaluate-avt() function allow you to dynamically evaluate a string containing an AVT.
- URL rewriting issue in separate deployment now fixed. This was a long-standing issue thanks to the help of Helsinki University of Technology.
- Fix to instance() function. This was also a long-standing issue whereby the instance() function can be called without arguments.
- Secure Copy support. The oxf:file XPL processor now supports copying files with scp.
- XForm specification
- XForms 1.1 is a W3C Recommendation. On October 20, and after years of hard work, XForms 1.1 has become a full recommendation! Check the testimonials of member companies. Check also Kurt Cagle's "The Key XForms Enhancements in Version 1.1".
- XForms Working Group face to face meeting. In early November, we had a face to face meeting in California. We made good progress on XForms 1.2/2.0 features such as custom XPath functions, improved UI events, and even discussed the topic of components.
- Documentation, how-tos, and examples
- Security. Security of your XForms-based app is important to you? See what we are doing about security in Orbeon Forms.
- Installation. Installation instructions for Orbeon Forms are now on the Wiki and we have instructions for WebLogic 10/11g.
- Standards and extensions. We put up some doc on the wiki about our stance regarding XForms extensions. Hint: we love standards ;)
- Wiki home page. We refreshed the Orbeon Forms Wiki home page.
- How-to guides
- Implement a hierarchical view in XForms with a single xforms:repeat. See also the result.
- Wondering how to internationalize your XForms application? Then see this documentation on the Orbeon Forms wiki.
- How to use a dialog to edit information shown in a table.
- How to insert a new item into a repeat.
- How to capture rich HTML text.
- How to do a post back to the window that opened a pop-up (if you really have to use pop-ups!)
- How to delegate validation to an external service in XForms.
- Misc
- eXist's Wolfgang Meier on FLOSS Weekly. Check this podcast interview of Wolfgang, the main developer of the eXist XML database that we ship with Orbeon Forms.