[announcement] XForms course 16-17 June 2011, San Carlos, California

["C. M. Sperberg-McQueen" <cmsmcq@blackmesatech.com>]

(This course should be of interest to users of XML located in
or near the Bay Area and to anyone interested in XForms.)

Black Mesa Technologies is pleased to announce a two-day hands-on
introductory course on XForms to take place 16-17 June 2011 in San
Carlos, California. MarkLogic Corporation is generously making a
training room available for the course (but it should be noted that
it's not a MarkLogic course).

INTRODUCTION TO XFORMS FOR XML USERS

  San Carlos, California
  16-17 June 2011

This two-day hands-on course introduces XForms as a technology for
building special-purpose XML editors with limited functionality and
correspondingly simple user interfaces.

XForms is built on the model / view / controller idiom, in which the
'model' is a set of XML documents, the 'view' is specified using
XHTML and XForms controls (or 'widgets'), and the 'controller' takes
the form of declarative links between controls in the view and
elements or attributes in the XML documents. With XForms, projects
can develop vocabulary- and task-specific editors which require less
training and provide better task-specific support than full XML
editors; it is thus easier to allow domain experts to examine and
modify XML encoding, and routine tasks can be performed more quickly
and reliably. 

* Topics and syllabus

The course is divided into eight sessions, four to a day:

  Introduction: High-level overview of XForms, background, goals and
  purpose of the XForms spec; “Hello, world” example

  Atomic values and simple structures (1): A simple form; multiple
  submit buttons; enumerated values and vocabulary control;
  conditional relevance; datatypes; validation.

  Atomic values and simple structures (2): Error messages, help,
  hints; validation beyond datatypes; styling the form; adjusting
  for alternate XML structures.

  Multi-part user interfaces: 
  Coding patterns for tabbed interfaces, wizards, user-selected
  alternate views (e.g. summary vs. details, novice vs expert,
  etc.). Multiple instances; dynamic user interfaces.

  Homogeneous repetitions: Handling flat lists; paging through
  records, one record at a time; running off the cliff and how to
  avoid it. Read-only lists; lists of editable items; see-many,
  edit-one interfaces.

  Read-write repetitions, CRUD operations: Special styling for focus
  item; two-pane views. Inserting items; initializing new
  items. Deleting items.

  Mixed content, heterogeneous sequences: Dealing with (flat)
  heterogeneous sequences; dealing with variable-depth
  sequences. Extensions to XForms: tree editors, general mixed-content
  editors. Doing without the extensions: targeted editing in mixed
  content, offloading work to XSLT.

  What next? Individual work and/or Q/A: Where do you go from here?
  Individual work or questions and answers; wrapup.

During the class, students will develop a small XForms application
with a multi-part interface, multiple widget types, and the ability to
add, modify, and delete records in a set. Students will be encouraged
to take their class exercise files with them so that they can continue
to work with them after the class.  


* Prerequisites

Participants should be comfortable editing XML documents and have some
knowledge of HTML markup. Familiarity with XPath and XSLT is helpful
but not required. Programming experience is not required.

Students should bring their own laptops; no classroom machines will be
provided.  The machine must have wifi support, a browser with built-in
support for XSLT (any current version of most major browsers
qualifies) and software the student can use for editing XML documents.


* Who

The course is organized by Black Mesa Technologies LLC and will be
taught by C. M. Sperberg-McQueen.

Michael Sperberg-McQueen is the founder of Black Mesa Technologies. He
has served as co-editor of the XML 1.0 specification, the Text
Encoding Initiative's Guidelines for Text Encoding and Interchange,
and the XML Schema Definition Language (XSD) 1.1 specification; in
2003 he was awarded the XML Cup for contributions to the development
and spread of XML.

MarkLogic Corporation is providing space (for which thanks), but has
no other involvement with the course.


* Logistics

This course will be held from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Thursday and
Friday, 16-17 June 2011, at

    MarkLogic Corporation
    999 Skyway Road, Suite 200
    San Carlos, CA 94070

Thanks to MarkLogic Corporation for hosting the course.

For other logistical information, see the course web site at
http://www.xforms201106.blackmesatech.com/


* Reservations / Info

Space in the course is limited.

To reserve a space, to register, or to ask for more information,
please send email to info@blackmesatech.com or call us at
505/747-4224.

An early-bird discount is available for registrations made before 
16 May 2011.


* Announcements of future courses

To receive announcements of future Black Mesa Technologies courses on
XForms and other topics, you can subscribe to
blackmesatech-announce-l.

 
-- 
****************************************************************
* C. M. Sperberg-McQueen, Black Mesa Technologies LLC
* http://www.blackmesatech.com 
* http://cmsmcq.com/mib                 
* http://balisage.net
****************************************************************