Nice job, Ethan. This looks really cool. We have an Orbeon-based MODS editor, but I have found Orbeon to be a bit tough to develop/maintain and more heavyweight than we really need. We're considering more Xforms implementations, but I would love to find a more lightweight Xforms application. Does anyone have any recommendations? The only one I know of is XSLTForms (http://www.agencexml.com/xsltforms) but I haven't messed with it yet. -Andy On 11/13/09 9:13 AM, "Eric Hellman" <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > XForms and Orbeon are very interesting tools for developing metadata > management tools. > > The ONIX developers have used this stack to produce an interface for ONIX-PL > called OPLE that people should try out. > > http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/pals3/onixeditor.aspx > > Questions about Orbeon relate to performance and integrability, but I think > it's an impressive use of XForms nonetheless. > > - Eric > > On Nov 12, 2009, at 1:30 PM, Ethan Gruber wrote: > >> Hello all, >> >> Over the past few months I have been working on and off on a research >> project to develop a XForms, web-based editor for EAD finding aids that runs >> within the Orbeon tomcat application. While still in a very early alpha >> stage (I have probably put only 60-80 hours of work into it thus far), I >> think that it's ready for a general demonstration to solicit opinions, >> criticism, etc. from librarians, and technical staff. >> >> Background: >> For those not familiar with XForms, it is a W3C standard for creating >> next-generation forms. It is powerful and can allow you to create XML in >> the way that it is intended to be created, without limits to repeatability, >> complex hierarchies, or mixed content. Orbeon adds a level on top of that, >> taking care of all the ajax calls, serialization, CRUD operations, and a >> variety of widgets that allow nice features like tabs and >> autocomplete/autosuggest that can be bound to authority lists and controlled >> access terms. By default, Orbeon reads and writes data from and to an eXist >> database that comes packaged with it, but you can have it serialize the XML >> to disk or have it interact with any REST interface such as Fedora. >> >> Goals: >> Ultimately, I wish to create a system of forms that can open any EAD >> 2002-compliant XML file without any data loss or XML transformation >> whatsoever. I think that this is the shortcoming of systems such as Archon >> and Archivists' Toolkit. I want to integrate authority lists that can be >> integrated into certain fields with autosuggest (such as corporate names, >> people, and subjects). If there is demand, I can build a public interface >> for viewing the entire EAD collection, complete with solr for faceted browse >> and search, but this is secondary to producing a form that people with some >> basic archiving knowledge and EAD background can use to easily and >> effectively create finding aids. A public interface is the easy part, in >> any case. It wouldn't take more than a week or two to build something >> fairly nice and robust. >> >> Here is the link: http://beta.scholarslab.org:9080/cocoon/eaditor/ >> >> I should stress that the application is *not complete.* I am using cocoon >> for providing a list of EAD content in the system. I will remove that >> application eventually and utilize Orbeon's internal pipelining features to >> achieve the same objective. I haven't delved too deeply into Orbeon's >> pipelines yet. >> >> Here are some things to note: >> >> 1. If you click on a link to open the main part of the guide or any of its >> components, you have to click the "Load" link on the top of the form. Forms >> aren't being loaded on page load yet. >> 2. Elements that accept mixed content per the EAD 2002 schema (e.g. >> paragraphs) only accept PCDATA. I haven't worked on mixed content yet; it >> is by far the most challenging aspect of the project. >> 3. I only have a few C-level elements available to add. >> 4. Not all did elements are available yet. >> 5. A lot of the generic attributes, like type and label, are not available >> for editing yet. This may be the type of thing that is best customized per >> institution relative to their own best practices. I don't want more input >> fields than necessary right now. >> 6. The only thing you can add into the archdesc right now is the <dsc>. >> Once I finish all of the c-level elements, I can just put some xi:includes >> into the archdesc XForm file to show them in the archdesc level. >> >> I think those are the major issues for now. As I stated earlier, this is >> sort of a pre-alpha. The project is open source and available (through svn) >> to anyone who wants it. http://code.google.com/p/eaditor/ . I have put >> together an easy package to get the application up and running without >> difficulty. All you have to do is unzip the download, go into the apache >> tomcat folder and execute the startup script. This assumes you have nothing >> running on port 8080 already. >> >> Download page: http://code.google.com/p/eaditor/downloads/list >> >> Wiki instructions: >> http://code.google.com/p/eaditor/wiki/QuickstartInstallation?ts=1257887453&up >> dated=QuickstartInstallation >> >> Comments, questions, criticism welcome. The editor is a sandbox. Feel free >> to experiment. >> >> Ethan Gruber >> University of Virginia Library > > Eric Hellman > President, Gluejar, Inc. > 41 Watchung Plaza, #132 > Montclair, NJ 07042 > USA > > [log in to unmask] > http://go-to-hellman.blogspot.com/