Thanks.

I've looked into Chiba, but it doesn't really impress me.
http://www.chiba-project.org:8080/chiba/

I don't mind Orbeon.  It may have more features than I would ever use, but
their support is fantastic.  There are a lot of users and a very active
listserv, and the developers always respond to your questions within 24
hours.

Ethan

On Fri, Nov 13, 2009 at 9:36 AM, Andrew Ashton <[log in to unmask]>wrote:

> 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/
>