I use Cocoon a lot, and for a particular project I've built a system similar to what you describe. I run an instance of Cocoon on my laptop, which serves out html forms to my browser, populated with info from a particular xml file. When I submit a form, another pipeline writes the results back to the original XML file, using the Source Writing Transformer (http://cocoon.apache.org/2.1/userdocs/transformers/sourcewriting-transf ormer.html). This allows me to use the amazing power of Cocoon Forms to manage the mapping from the source xml to the form and back again (http://cocoon.apache.org/2.1/userdocs/forms/sample.html).
It would probably be overkill to pick up Cocoon from scratch for this purpose, but maybe you've been looking for an opportunity to try Cocoon?
Peter
Peter Binkley Digital Initiatives Technology Librarian Information Technology Services 4-30 Cameron Library University of Alberta Libraries Edmonton, Alberta Canada T6G 2J8 Phone: (780) 492-3743 Fax: (780) 492-9243 e-mail: peter.binkley@ualberta.ca
-----Original Message----- From: dm-l-bounces@uleth.ca [mailto:dm-l-bounces@uleth.ca] On Behalf Of Daniel O'Donnell Sent: Friday, January 07, 2005 02:16 PM To: Digital Medievalist list Subject: [dm-l] Form-based methods of building xml?
The Digital Medievalist List (see end of message for contact information and project URLs).
Hi all, Does anybody know of a good method for form-based xml-file construction? I am looking for something to use on a local (winxp) machine. Like most people I have a number of files that are written either through accretion (e.g. like a CV) or that consist largely of boiler plate with minor customisation (e.g. class schedules, web-pages, etc.). I'm in the process of converting these to xml from various formats, as I hope to gain some real efficiencies. My question whether anybody can suggest a good method for adding marked up text to such files using a form. The CV is probably the best case: I'd like to have a form that allows me to read in the existing material, enter the new item, and have the expanded document as output. In the past I've used javascript and HTML forms to build standard webpages, and emacs form-mode to build simple form-based database entry mechanisms. Since I'm basically looking for a very simple way of adding markup to highly standard text, I'm trying to avoid using a spreadsheet as an intermediate. In fact I'm probably looking for a combination of the emacs-style forms (which import or create datafiles and allow users to easily update existing data) and a java-script type solution that allows me to add markup around form-field contents. Any suggestions?
-dan
Daniel Paul O'Donnell, PhD Associate Professor of English University of Lethbridge Lethbridge AB T1K 3M4 Tel. (403) 329-2377 Fax. (403) 382-7191 E-mail daniel.odonnell@uleth.ca Home Page http://people.uleth.ca/~daniel.odonnell/ The Digital Medievalist Project: http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/
Digital Medievalist Project Homepage: http://www.digitalmedievalist.org Journal (December 2004-): http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/journal.cfm RSS (announcements) server: http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/rss/rss2.cfm Wiki: http://sql.uleth.ca/dmorgwiki/index.php Change membership options: http://listserv.uleth.ca/mailman/listinfo/dm-l Submit RSS announcement: http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/newitem.cfm Contact editorial Board: digitalmedievalist@uleth.ca dm-l mailing list dm-l@uleth.ca http://listserv.uleth.ca/mailman/listinfo/dm-l
Thanks Peter. I've not been going out of my way to find excuses to use cocoon, but I am trying very much to streamline my workflow across the board: once I get one successful thing going, I can see it get used everywhere: bibliography, cv, correspondence, class material, etc.
I'll look into this. -dan
Peter.Binkley@ualberta.ca wrote:
The Digital Medievalist List (see end of message for contact information and project URLs).
I use Cocoon a lot, and for a particular project I've built a system similar to what you describe. I run an instance of Cocoon on my laptop, which serves out html forms to my browser, populated with info from a particular xml file. When I submit a form, another pipeline writes the results back to the original XML file, using the Source Writing Transformer (http://cocoon.apache.org/2.1/userdocs/transformers/sourcewriting-transf ormer.html). This allows me to use the amazing power of Cocoon Forms to manage the mapping from the source xml to the form and back again (http://cocoon.apache.org/2.1/userdocs/forms/sample.html).
It would probably be overkill to pick up Cocoon from scratch for this purpose, but maybe you've been looking for an opportunity to try Cocoon?
Peter
Peter Binkley Digital Initiatives Technology Librarian Information Technology Services 4-30 Cameron Library University of Alberta Libraries Edmonton, Alberta Canada T6G 2J8 Phone: (780) 492-3743 Fax: (780) 492-9243 e-mail: peter.binkley@ualberta.ca
-----Original Message----- From: dm-l-bounces@uleth.ca [mailto:dm-l-bounces@uleth.ca] On Behalf Of Daniel O'Donnell Sent: Friday, January 07, 2005 02:16 PM To: Digital Medievalist list Subject: [dm-l] Form-based methods of building xml?
The Digital Medievalist List (see end of message for contact information and project URLs).
Hi all, Does anybody know of a good method for form-based xml-file construction? I am looking for something to use on a local (winxp) machine. Like most people I have a number of files that are written either through accretion (e.g. like a CV) or that consist largely of boiler plate with minor customisation (e.g. class schedules, web-pages, etc.). I'm in the process of converting these to xml from various formats, as I hope to gain some real efficiencies. My question whether anybody can suggest a good method for adding marked up text to such files using a form. The CV is probably the best case: I'd like to have a form that allows me to read in the existing material, enter the new item, and have the expanded document as output. In the past I've used javascript and HTML forms to build standard webpages, and emacs form-mode to build simple form-based database entry mechanisms. Since I'm basically looking for a very simple way of adding markup to highly standard text, I'm trying to avoid using a spreadsheet as an intermediate. In fact I'm probably looking for a combination of the emacs-style forms (which import or create datafiles and allow users to easily update existing data) and a java-script type solution that allows me to add markup around form-field contents. Any suggestions?
-dan
Daniel Paul O'Donnell, PhD Associate Professor of English University of Lethbridge Lethbridge AB T1K 3M4 Tel. (403) 329-2377 Fax. (403) 382-7191 E-mail daniel.odonnell@uleth.ca Home Page http://people.uleth.ca/~daniel.odonnell/ The Digital Medievalist Project: http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/
Digital Medievalist Project Homepage: http://www.digitalmedievalist.org Journal (December 2004-): http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/journal.cfm RSS (announcements) server: http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/rss/rss2.cfm Wiki: http://sql.uleth.ca/dmorgwiki/index.php Change membership options: http://listserv.uleth.ca/mailman/listinfo/dm-l Submit RSS announcement: http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/newitem.cfm Contact editorial Board: digitalmedievalist@uleth.ca dm-l mailing list dm-l@uleth.ca http://listserv.uleth.ca/mailman/listinfo/dm-l
Digital Medievalist Project Homepage: http://www.digitalmedievalist.org Journal (December 2004-): http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/journal.cfm RSS (announcements) server: http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/rss/rss2.cfm Wiki: http://sql.uleth.ca/dmorgwiki/index.php Change membership options: http://listserv.uleth.ca/mailman/listinfo/dm-l Submit RSS announcement: http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/newitem.cfm Contact editorial Board: digitalmedievalist@uleth.ca dm-l mailing list dm-l@uleth.ca http://listserv.uleth.ca/mailman/listinfo/dm-l
Daniel O'Donnell wrote:
The Digital Medievalist List (see end of message for contact information and project URLs).
Thanks Peter. I've not been going out of my way to find excuses to use cocoon, but I am trying very much to streamline my workflow across the board: once I get one successful thing going, I can see it get used everywhere: bibliography, cv, correspondence, class material, etc.
I'll look into this. -dan
Another option is using eXist and XUpdate. So your form instead of using cocoon's Source Writing Transformer uses XUpdate to write the new/changed information back into the XML file stored in the eXist database.
-James
Peter.Binkley@ualberta.ca wrote:
The Digital Medievalist List (see end of message for contact information and project URLs).
I use Cocoon a lot, and for a particular project I've built a system similar to what you describe. I run an instance of Cocoon on my laptop, which serves out html forms to my browser, populated with info from a particular xml file. When I submit a form, another pipeline writes the results back to the original XML file, using the Source Writing Transformer (http://cocoon.apache.org/2.1/userdocs/transformers/sourcewriting-transf ormer.html). This allows me to use the amazing power of Cocoon Forms to manage the mapping from the source xml to the form and back again (http://cocoon.apache.org/2.1/userdocs/forms/sample.html). It would probably be overkill to pick up Cocoon from scratch for this purpose, but maybe you've been looking for an opportunity to try Cocoon?
Peter
Peter Binkley Digital Initiatives Technology Librarian Information Technology Services 4-30 Cameron Library University of Alberta Libraries Edmonton, Alberta Canada T6G 2J8 Phone: (780) 492-3743 Fax: (780) 492-9243 e-mail: peter.binkley@ualberta.ca
-----Original Message----- From: dm-l-bounces@uleth.ca [mailto:dm-l-bounces@uleth.ca] On Behalf Of Daniel O'Donnell Sent: Friday, January 07, 2005 02:16 PM To: Digital Medievalist list Subject: [dm-l] Form-based methods of building xml?
The Digital Medievalist List (see end of message for contact information and project URLs).
Hi all, Does anybody know of a good method for form-based xml-file construction? I am looking for something to use on a local (winxp) machine. Like most people I have a number of files that are written either through accretion (e.g. like a CV) or that consist largely of boiler plate with minor customisation (e.g. class schedules, web-pages, etc.). I'm in the process of converting these to xml from various formats, as I hope to gain some real efficiencies. My question whether anybody can suggest a good method for adding marked up text to such files using a form. The CV is probably the best case: I'd like to have a form that allows me to read in the existing material, enter the new item, and have the expanded document as output. In the past I've used javascript and HTML forms to build standard webpages, and emacs form-mode to build simple form-based database entry mechanisms. Since I'm basically looking for a very simple way of adding markup to highly standard text, I'm trying to avoid using a spreadsheet as an intermediate. In fact I'm probably looking for a combination of the emacs-style forms (which import or create datafiles and allow users to easily update existing data) and a java-script type solution that allows me to add markup around form-field contents. Any suggestions?
-dan
Daniel Paul O'Donnell, PhD Associate Professor of English University of Lethbridge Lethbridge AB T1K 3M4 Tel. (403) 329-2377 Fax. (403) 382-7191 E-mail daniel.odonnell@uleth.ca Home Page http://people.uleth.ca/~daniel.odonnell/ The Digital Medievalist Project: http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/
Digital Medievalist Project Homepage: http://www.digitalmedievalist.org Journal (December 2004-): http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/journal.cfm RSS (announcements) server: http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/rss/rss2.cfm Wiki: http://sql.uleth.ca/dmorgwiki/index.php Change membership options: http://listserv.uleth.ca/mailman/listinfo/dm-l Submit RSS announcement: http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/newitem.cfm Contact editorial Board: digitalmedievalist@uleth.ca dm-l mailing list dm-l@uleth.ca http://listserv.uleth.ca/mailman/listinfo/dm-l
Digital Medievalist Project Homepage: http://www.digitalmedievalist.org Journal (December 2004-): http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/journal.cfm RSS (announcements) server: http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/rss/rss2.cfm Wiki: http://sql.uleth.ca/dmorgwiki/index.php Change membership options: http://listserv.uleth.ca/mailman/listinfo/dm-l Submit RSS announcement: http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/newitem.cfm Contact editorial Board: digitalmedievalist@uleth.ca dm-l mailing list dm-l@uleth.ca http://listserv.uleth.ca/mailman/listinfo/dm-l
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Daniel O'Donnell -
James Cummings -
Peter.Binkleyļ¼ ualberta.ca