Closed GoogleCodeExporter closed 8 years ago
Tom,
Thanks for taking the time to provide this feedback. I enjoy learning about how
users are using the project in their development. I will respond to this with
my
thoughts shortly.
- Andrew
Original comment by ajporterfield@gmail.com
on 13 May 2010 at 1:57
There's quite a few individual items in your initial message. I will try and
address several. Let's start with...
"you are going to be swamped with 'enhancement' requests. why not make the
class extensible, letting programmers write (and contribute) widgets."
Growing/strengthening this project's development community is very important to
me. Currently, there are two members with commit
access through subversion and the code.google.com interface - moncojhr and
myself. In order to be given commit access, a member
must prove him/herself to a competent programmer that works well in a group
environment. This includes being polite and respectful
within the community. The easiest way to get your foot in the door is to
provide a patch for the project. We will review it and provide
feedback if applicable. If it's approved and we thinks it's a good fit, we
will include it in the live version. Another approach is to
participate in code review. There is a google group -
http://groups.google.com/group/php-form-builder-class-developer - created
specifically for reviewing subversion commits.
- Andrew
Original comment by ajporterfield@gmail.com
on 13 May 2010 at 9:04
i'm in total agreement with your 'how to be a contributor' roadmap. but i'm
suggesting something considerably less difficult.
there are hundreds of JQUERY add-on widgets. their authors have simply built a
plug-in that conforms to the standard JQUERY architecture. over time, the
cleanest
ones have been adopted into the core by the JQUERY team.
a trivial example for a FORM BUILDER widget would be a canadian provinces
version of
'states' (i live in toronto). someone surely will need the 28 provinces of
bulgaria
too.
this shouldn't require forking your class (or reimplementing with each
release). a
programmer should NOT have to modify CLASS.FORM.PHP. it should be as easy as
subclassing (or copy-and-pasting) 'states' in his program, and changing the
initial
values.
Original comment by tom.bere...@gmail.com
on 14 May 2010 at 12:44
My response to...
"when I think of a form, it's a complex structure. it may have multiple
tabs, multiple panels that group similar items, pop-up sub-forms, etc.
look at the 'preferences' tab on your browser or text editor for an example."
A recurring theme in your initial post is that the project is too simplistic to
use
in a complex scenario. To some extent, I agree with you; however, the project
is
flexible enough - elementsToString() function, css-driven structure, etc - to be
integrated into custom environments. The examples provided offer a basic demo
of
what I consider the core/key functionality. They aren't meant to showcase the
full
potential of how this project can be used. There's a fine line between what
functionality to include in this project, and what functionality to leave in the
hands of the user/developer. Typically, I will listen to the feedback coming
back
from people using the project to gauge whether or not it makes sense to include
some
new feature. XHTML strict compliance was consistently coming up in the issue
tracker
and google group, so we decided to address it and build it into the project.
I final thought...
I have no data to back this up, but I don't think the majority of forms on the
web
contain multiple tabs, panels, and pop-up subforms (whatever those are). This
project will never to able to fully support everything that a developer wants to
accomplish with a form - it's unrealistic to attempt this. If this project can
satisfy the needs to 80% of the developers that are using it, I feel that we've
provided a successful, useful piece of software.
Original comment by ajporterfield@gmail.com
on 16 May 2010 at 3:11
Original comment by ajporterfield@gmail.com
on 17 May 2010 at 11:15
Original issue reported on code.google.com by
tom.bere...@gmail.com
on 12 May 2010 at 8:45