XForms and Fedora

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XForms and Fedora

• Simplifying Fedora Frontends with XForms and
  Fedora Disseminators

Matt Zumwalt MediaShelf, LLC http//www.yourmedias
helf.com
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Requirements

• What MediaShelf aims accomplish with its UIs

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User Experience

• One feature set, Many Interfaces
• Minimize Learning Curve
• UX Must match Use Cases User Requirements

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Diverse XML Metadata

• Task-specific taxonomies
• Ex. Descriptive Metadata
• Aggregate taxonomies
• Cross-pollination

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Users Vocabularies

• Groups of users inevitably talk about their work
  in distinct ways. An effective UI has to reflect
  that vocabulary

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Lexicon for UIs

• Finite Vocabulary
• One description, many renditions

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Separation of Concerns

• Binding XML to UI
• Binding UI to user vocabularies
• Finding that balance

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XForms

• A Look at the pertinent features of XForms and
  how they satisfy our requirements

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Using Forms to Edit XML

• Anywhere an HTML Form would be used, XForms can
  be used
• Best example Descriptive Metadata

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XForms Strengths

• Codify Intentions for UI
• Separation of Concerns with MVC
• Pure XML XSL
• Service Oriented
• Standardized

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Codify Intentions

• XForms enables creators to codify the intended
  components and functionality for a form rather
  than defining the form itself

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Separation of Concernswith MVC
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Define the Model

• An XForms Model defines the data that you want to
  operate on and the targets you want to submit
  that data to

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Explicitly Aware of XML

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Describe the UI

• An XForms View is a standards-compliant
  description of a form and all of the actions it
  should perform

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XForms Elements
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Pure XML XSL

• Relatively simple markup
• Mature technologies
• Store as datastreams in Fedora
• Inline or Reference
• Use disseminators
• Versionable UI!

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Service Oriented

• Submit XML to any service
• Easy to change target URL
• Multiple submissions

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Standardized

• A single XForms Model/View pair can be displayed
  by any XForms compliant tool
• Automatically switch between XHTML, Flash, Swing,
  etc.

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Discuss XForms

• Codify intentions for UI
• Separation of Concerns with MVC
• Pure XML XSL
• Service Oriented
• Standardized

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The Perfect Match

• How we integrated XForms with Fedora

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Overlap with CMDA

• Simplified subset of same concerns
• Deals only with datastreams that contain (XML)
  metadata
• Easily translate when/if CMDA is ready

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Inherited Datastreams

• Define what metadata youre tracking for a given
  set of objects
• Define how you store that metadata
• URL of datastreams
• Schema or template of XML

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One model to another

• XForms model can be derived from content model
• Primary Concerns
• Location of XML to edit
• URL of service for submitting edited XML

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The Views Follow

• Any number of Xforms Views can be created that
  manipulate your XML by means of its XForms Model

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XForms Disseminators

• For a simple context, XForms model and view can
  be hard coded as datastreams
• For a more dynamic system, both can be generated
  on the fly using disseminators

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Transitive Qualities

• An XForms model/view pair can be applied to any
  object that conforms to the content model
• (CMDA aims to support this)

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Summary

• We apply a simple content model to objects,
  dictating that certain XML datastreams must exist
• XForms model and view can be exposed for those
  objects using disseminators

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Exposure

• Getting from XML/XForms to a UI

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Renderer OrbeonForms

• Server Side XForms
• XHTML templates CSS
• Supports custom javascript
• XPL processing

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XForms Renderers

• Server Side vs Client Side
• Firefox Extension
• Eclipse/SWT Component
• Growing list on Wikipedia

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XForms in Context

• Editing XML datastreams is only a part of our
  users concerns
• Must create complete UIs

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Tapestry Approach

• Full UI from many parts
• AJAX Tricks
• Integrated at service level

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Observations

• Some technical observations/speculations about
  XForms and Fedora

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The RESTful Approach

• Ruby on Rails
• Being a good web citizen
• SOA done right (and easily)

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REST and HTTP Verbs

• Example URL /fedora/service/manage/demo77/DC
• PUT Create Datastream
• POST Update Datastream
• GET Get Datastream
• DELETE Delete Datastream

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XForms, REST Fedora

• REST, HTTP and CRUD
• XForms Actions Methods
• Minimize code between User and Fedora

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XForms in CMDA?

• What stage of development?
• Is XForms a good fit?
• How to move forward?

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Thank You.

• For more information and code samples, visit
  http//www.yourmediashelf.com/reference/xforms

Matt Zumwalt MediaShelf, LLC http//www.yourmedias
helf.com