RE: XML was RE: [GD-General] RE: A portable preferences library

[Ivan-Assen I. <as...@ha...>]

> It seemed to me that it provided a way to lay out a GUI to allow
> data input to static XML. One requirement we have is that on selecting
> a piece of data, the GUI changes to show a set of possible choices.
> Essneitally, we want the GUI to guide the designer into using the
> correct data structure.
> 
> Is this what InfoPath is supposed to do? Does it dynamically change
> the GUI depending on current choices? Or is it static forms of
> data which represent an instance of the data the XML represents?

It is very easy to do - you can hide/show or reformat (font/colors etc.) controls
or groups of controls based on the values of other controls.

It has the concept of repeatable sections, which can be displayed as
series of identical grouped controls, or tables, and the user can insert/delete
sections.

You can perform simple validation with GUI-edited rules, or more
complex validation and event processing with JScript.

Of course, it's not perfect - I'm waiting to see the fabled version 3.0 - but
it's a great step up from grid-based editors like XMLSpy.