beaufour: April 2005 Archives

Checked In

• Small fix for schema handling, we were assuming the presence of a schema (bug 289595)

In Progress

• Olli and Andrew is making good progress on the new widget-design. A new XTF+XBL design has been proposed (bug 291026), and the widgets have been updated to use it (bug 289434). We’re getting close.

• Fixes for index() handling: Updating controls using index() when index changes (bug 289534) and actually getting controls using index() work (other than <output> with a value attribute) (bug 291797).

• The new attribute handling is awaiting review (bug 235512)

• Pseudo-class handling has gotten yet another design approach, and is waiting for feedback (bug 271720)

Mostly small fixes this week.

Checked In

• Refined error reporting so we can report multiple types of errors (bug 289518), and added some more detail to the error messages (bug 290308).

• Fixed repeat which broke due to checkins last week (bug 290253).

In Progress

Same stuff as last week, except for the above checkin.

Useless Information :)

We have a short work-week in Denmark this week, as Friday is a public holiday: “Store Bededag”. Literally this means “Big Praying Day”. In the 17th century the king decided that we had too many public (church) holidays, so a lot of public holidays was collected to one “big praying day”. Very pragmatic :)

Ever wondered what the 70s in Denmark looked like? Heh, probably not. But here is an example anyway :) A fantastic music video with the Danish musician Tommy Seebach. Oh wee, they do not make videos like that anymore :)

Checked In

• We now write error messages to the JS console when we throw an XForms exception event (bug 289297)

• Got rid of the ugly refresh-everything-always hack, so now we only refresh controls that need to be refreshed. This should seriously speed things up, but is also a potential form-breaker (bug 278368)

• Optimized when we process the node bindings for our controls. Again, should also speed things up (bug 284469)

In Progress

• Modify our error reporting so we can report fatal errors, etc and not only “messages” (bug 289518)

• <select> bugs (bug 281668, bug 279063, bug 278277)

• We’ve gotten a bit further in modifying the attribute handling (bug 235512), to make it possible to store properties on attributes (bug 285597), which will make it possible for us to attach types on attributes (bug 283004).

• We’re exploring the possibility of using XBL as a way to create widgets for XForms (bug 289434). There’s still plenty of issues and unanswered questions, but the potential in it is huge.

• We’re trying to get support for the pseudo classes like :read-only, :enabled, etc. (bug 271720)

Spam, spam, spam… also for blogs of course :( Here’s nice entry about new blog anti-spam plugins. I’ve installed MT-Moderate, let’s see if that helps me.

It’s the Copenhagen Night Film Festival (da. Natfilmsfestival) this week. A cool movie festival held in Copenhagen each year, with movies from all over the world — most of them only shown in Denmark on the festival.

As usual I am a busy guest, seeing one or two movies per day. Here’s the movies I’ve seen so far:

• A Dirty Shame
• The Woodsman
• Red Coloured Grey Truck
• Forgiveness
• Innocence
• Azumi
• The Consequences of Love
• One Missed Call
• Gagamboy
• The Art of Losing
• Chased By Dreams

Except for Gagamboy, which was disappointing, they’ve all been pretty good. But the best so far has been Forgiveness, a South African movie about an ex-cop from the apartheid days that returns and confronts the family of the boy he murdered as a cop. Touching and very good movie. It’s followed closely by The Woodsman, which is about a pedophile that returns to his hometown after 12 years in prison, and tries to get back to leading a normal life. A hard subject, and good acting from Kevin Bacon.

And here’s “what’s left”:

• The Wayward Cloud
• Evilenko
• Undead
• The Edukators

Gotta run … there’s a movie up :)

Hmmm, forgot to “release” a new version of my XForms Buddy. I’ve mostly forgotten what I’ve changed :), but here’s some of it:

• Much better styling
• Added expression watcher
• Added event watcher (will go away again, as we start using the JS console)
• Toyed around with the updateURL, but didn’t quite make it work

Get the newest version

I’ve gotten a new mobile phone: A motorola A780:

It’s got 50MB flash, Bluetooth, quad-band, browser, etc. but the main reason for choosing it is that it runs on Linux — Montavista Linux if I’m not misinformed. The question is whether it’s possible to access Linux, or you are limited to Java APIs? Did anyone say Firefox? :)

I’ve only had it for a day now, and haven’t had the time to play around with it. It works, but first impression is that it has some “1. generation” problems. More to come…

Status

Easter has passed, and we back in business. To get an overview I’ve updated the XForms project page, so it includes an up to date status on the current code. It’s more green than I thought, so I’ve probably forgotten something :)

Checked in

• outputing errors on the JavaScript console (bug 287714). We still need to fit the rest of the current errors to this too…

• hints now look more like hints (bug 287272)

In Progress

• <select> bugs (bug 281668, bug 279063, bug 278277)

• Get types to work for attributes and stop modifying instance data with type information (bug 283004, bug 285597, bug 235512)

• New UI architecture (bug on the way). I think the XTF+XBL idea is good, but we’ve run into some “issues” with it. Let’s see.

Misc

On a sidenote, there’s an interesting conference in May: X-Tech: XML, the Web and Beyond. There are a number of both XForms and Mozilla talks. I’ll be there, and so will bryner and possibly others from the XForms team.

And if you’re wondering where the status update for last Monday went, it was eaten by the Easter-monster :)

Spring has arrived in Denmark. It’s around 10-12 degrees Celcius, and I’ve gotten my bike out again — it’s fantasic to have it on the street again, after the winter break! Biking is fun — I can only recommend it. It’s a bit more dangerous than riding a car, but I think it’s worth it.

Spring also means a bit of work in the summer house, which is fine. But this year I’ve gotten an uninvited guest in the house:

This little critter, a marten, is probably a nice little animal. The problem is that it has moved in on my attic and is destroying the insulation :( So I used a good deal of this Thursday to try to Marten-proof the house, and also set up a trap to try to catch it. First priority is to keep it out, but catching it would be an added bonus. One of my neighbours has chickens in his garden, so he also has quite an interest in catching the beast.

Hopefully I’ll have a blog post soon with the title “Marten — RIP”…