Some guidelines to writing forms

Some guidelines to writing forms

A few simple guidelines when starting to write your first XForms:

• Avoid deep nesting of structures in the UI as it makes layout and styling via CSS harder and more error-prone.
• Start with simple forms
  Start experimenting with simple forms and make them run before advancing to the more tricky parts like complex bindings, constraints and events. It’s always simpler to move on if you have a running base.
• Understand the basics
  Experiment with the main building blocks of XForms and try to get an understanding for the processing model of XForms. Use the developer tools of your browser to see which events will be fired at certain times of the lifecycle or in response to your interactions
• Avoid common pitfalls
  When something goes wrong with your form check the most common points for failures are:
  • a needed namespace is not declared
  • an instance or its root node is lacking the needed empty namespace (‘xmlns=““’)
  • bindings are using XPathes which do not exist in the instance
  • an instance that cannot be found or loaded
  • incorrect idrefs (pointing to an unknown element)