dhis2-devs team mailing list archive

[Knut Staring <knutst@xxxxxxxxx>]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Ellen Ball <eball@xxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, Oct 21, 2009 at 8:07 PM
Subject: [OPENMRS-DEV] XForms module review
To: openmrs-devel-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


PIH has been using InfoPath (horrible) and moving as quickly as possible
away from that.
Here are some impressions from 2 hours of fiddling around with the XForms
module:

The things I love about the XForms module:  converts an xsn file, handles
multiple languages for the form (although it's not clear if this is fully
designed/implemented), it's not InfoPath and proprietary, provides a simple
option for the non-programmer, provides a wysiwyg interface AND communicates
with mobile devices and provides an "offline" mode

This is my wish list of improvements:

* graphical "view" of form from patient dashboard (XForms tab), not list of
fields
* repeat tag
* layout the form with tables, images, and other html tags
* css instead or in addition to Layout xml
* undo / redo buttons

Here are some areas that require documentation, clarification or tweaking:

* Save as... doesn't appear to work in the designer

* Edit of form/encounter on patient dashboard (XForms tab) produces NPE.

* What is the process for creating a new form? Here's my guess, but it
should be clearly documented:
 1) CREATE NEW FORM: Admin -> Xforms -> Patient Xform design? (design form
and then Save as...) NOTE: I assume that you need to save on the local pc,
but it doesn't allow save for me
 2) ADD FORM: Admin -> Form -> Manage form? (upload Xform, but see previous
problem)
 3) ADD PATIENT DATA: Form appears in patient dashboard (Xform tab). Asks
about "Add an encounter", but this is really a dropdown of forms, not
encounters.

* Too many options to do the same thing (toolbar, right click, and menu
pulldowns)

* Administration -> Xforms -> Medical history field? How should this work?
No documentation

* Difference between "XForms Designer" and "Patient XForm Design"?

* By default, the Xforms designer should not replace the browser window. I
would have expected it to open a new tab or browser or window.

* Xforms designer issues
 o Absolute positioning of "widgets" allows for overlapping items. Should be
method to permit relative position.
 o Same width / same height make 2 items the same, but not necessarily in
the direction you'd want. For example, select 2 items with different width,
select "same width" and the 1st one becomes the width of the 2nd.
 o File -> Save as... saves things where? Same for Save and Save as XHTML
 o View -> Shows only "Refresh". What is that?
 o Help -> "AboutOpenMRS XForms Designer" doesn't help
 o Model Xml - What is this for?

Overall I am very impressed with XForms module.  Kudos to Daniel and team
for the hard work.

Full disclosure:  PIH has been using htmlforms for the past 4 months.  This
was developed by Darius.  I find it easy to modify the html and specialty
tags.  It is simple to find/modify everything in one file.  It would be
great if the best of Xforms and htmlforms were merged into one amazing
module.

Ellen Ball
Partners In Health

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-- 
Cheers,
Knut Staring