rest/forms-brainstorming

2008-12-20T00:04:46Z

Lac4tOroun: ricgett

letoletovarc
= Forms Brainstorming =

This page collects ideas from [[forms-examples]] how to best encode form data into a microformat

== Proposal A: DETH - Dictionaries Encoding/Transmitting HTML ==

=== Rules (Strawman) ===

# Only use [http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml-modularization/abstract_modules.html#s_sformsmodule XHTML Basic Forms] Module
# Must use action with appropriate URI (no scripts)
# Recommend: use a ''label'' with every ''input''
# Make the ''for'' of the ''label'' match the ''id'' of ''input''
# Group ''label'' with ''input'' using ''<dl><dt><dd>''
# Always place ''submit'' and ''reset'' outside grouping

=== Questions for further research ===

# How to specify whether a field is optional or required?

## Suggestion: the label contains a * ?

=== Patterns ===

==== Anchor Design Pattern ====

<a class="deth" href="http//somesite.com/prog/adduser">label</a>

==== Forms Design Pattern ====

<form class="deth" action="http://somesite.com/users" method="post">
<dl>
<dt><label for="firstname">First name:</label></dt>
<dd><input type="text" id="firstname" />
</dd><dt>
<label for="lastname">Last name:</label></dt>
<dd><input type="text" id="lastname" />
</dd><dt>Sex</dt>
<dd><input type="radio" name="sex" value="male">Male</input>
<input type="radio" name="sex" value="female">Female</input>
</dd><dt>Travel</dt>
<dd> <input type="checkbox" name="travel" value="car">Car</input>
<input type="checkbox" name="travel" value="bike">Bicycle</input>
</dd><dt>
<label for="age">Age:</dt>
<dd>
<select>
<option val=0>< 18</option>
<option val=18>18-64</option>
<option val=65>65+</option>
</select>
</dd><dt>
<label for="description">Description:</label></dt>
<dd><textarea id="description">Default text</textarea>
</dd>
</dl>
<input type="submit" value="Send" />
<input type="reset" />
</form>

== Sample Python Binding ==

order=[
"firstname","lastname","sex",'"travel", "age","description"
]
dict={
"@@tag":"form",
"@action":"http://somesite.com/users/",
"@class":"deth",
"@enctype":"application/x-www-form-urlencoded",
"@method":"post",
"@@order":order,
"firstname":"First name:",
"lastname":"Last name:",
"sex":{"@type":"radio", "male":"Male", "female":"Female"},
"travel":{"@type":"checkbox", "car":"Car", "bike":"Bicycle"},
"age":{"@@body":"Age:", "@type":"select",
"0":"< 18", "18":"18-64", "65":"65+"
},
"description":{
"@@body":"Description:",
"@type":"textarea",
"@value":"Default text"
}
}

== Proposal B: REST-oriented process ==
From [Kyle Cordes], for the discovery of the parameters:

* You discover the URL of a service by some means.
* You GET that URL, which returns an HTML form.
* The HTML form describes where to POST to invoke that service, and what
parameters can be passed in that POST. In some cases, it will use
<selects>s to describe what options are valid for a parameter.
* In most cases, the form will be interspersed with human readable text,
to explain the meaning of the parameters (a machine-understandable way
to explain parameter meaning, sounds like an AI problem...)
* You (the user of a web browser, or a piece of software
programmatically using the server) populate the parameters and POST them
to the URL you discovered via the form.
* You get back a response, which might be an error message about a
parameter problem, or might be a respresentation of the "answer".

[OlaBerg] says: This is exactly what I do, and it works great! In fact, I
use it both for POST-API and GET-API. A set of forms defines a REST-ful
API.

== See Also ==

* [http://www.opendarwin.org/~drernie/rest-api.html REST self-describing API proposal]
* [http://opensearch.a9.com/ OpenSearch search results standard (REST-like)]
* [[rest-brainstorming]]

Microformats Wiki - User contributions [en]

rest/forms-brainstorming