From: Adam <""4thwormcastfromthemolehill\"{at}the field.near
the bridge">

Rich wrote:
>    Do you really have a requirement that you must use something for
> which implementations or practical implementations do not exist?  Who
> sets these requirements for you?
>

Real requirement. & What is more it may well be that we will be setting
the stds for "e-health" worldwide. With Katrina youz guyz
discovered that keeping medical records on paper in a hospital/surgery
basement is not always a good thing.

WRT the requirements, the main one is that it has to be an open std etc
such that some poor bloddy angolans or other 3'rd world country don't get
stung (as well as that fact that we don't want to be).



>    I did try the search you suggested and found
> http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/documents/TSCv6.2_2005_7_14_final.pdf which
> contains the statement
>
>
>        1. • As with other applications e-Forms have to comply with XML,
>           but no specific e-Forms specifications are mandated in the e-GIF.
>


We have others. I will see if there is a public doc which details this.

The nearest I can find is hedged in Sir Humphrey-speak

http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/faq/faq.asp?section=e%2DGIF&topic=55

Q. What electronic forms products are e-GIF compliant?

F"orms that are e-GIF compliant must be able to exchange data in XML
or export data into XML. The applicability of the XForms specifications (as
defined by W3C) to the e-GIF and other potential XML forms solutions are
under review by the e-Forms Working Group."

It needs to be seen in relation to other QA such as:

Q.  Is the e-GIF likely to specify open standards for distributed computing?

The e-GIF specifies standards for Web services; it focuses on technology
which is broadly consistent with standards used within the Internet. As a
government wide service level architecture matures, further standards for
web services and common application services will be evaluated for
inclusion in future version of the e-GIF.

Note in the first Q&A "XForms specifications (as defined by W3C)"

I will leave it at that. BTW The move to XML means a move to open stds in
gov terms. The recent decision wrt OpenDocument over your side o'the pond
is but one. In health terms wait & watch.


However just out of interest could you answer the question I asked originally?

When will MS be natively supporting XForms in IE or will it be a choice of
Moz or  IE + plugin such as the Novell one?

Adam

>
> Rich
>
>
>     "Adam"      > wrote in message
>     news:433baaff$1{at}w3.nls.net...
>     Mostly a question for Rich S, but others can join in (like I can stop
>     you ).
>
>     We have a requirement that going forward most of our forms should be of
>     the XHTML+XFORM variety (google on UK gov e-gif & xform).
>
>     Moz & others seem to be working towards native support for XForms but
>     all I can find wrt IE are some plugins which will undoubtably do the
>     job
>     but require downloadng etc.etc.
>
>     Equally OpenOffice2 has a quite good XForms builder & editor
& there is
>     a fairly neat thing from IBM for eclipse.
>
>     However can find zilch from MS. Any new wrt IE7 or even your MS dev
>     tools & XForms?
>
>
>     Adam

--- BBBS/NT v4.01 Flag-5