The state of Orbeon Forms, Part 9

Here is a summary of the Orbeon Forms developments for October 2010:

1. Releases
• Orbeon Forms 3.8. Orbeon Forms 3.8 was released in May in both CE and PE versions.
• Next release. There have been a huge number of commits and bug-fixes since version 3.8 and the code base is getting ready for an Orbeon Forms 3.9 release sooner rather than later.
2. Security
• YUI vulnerability. YUI, a library we use, announced a security vulnerability. Orbeon Forms nightly builds are already patched. If you have a deployed app using Orbeon Forms, we recommend you install the YUI Flash security patch. Here is how to do it.
3. Performance and reliability
• Caching of XForms pages. We implemented much better caching of XForms pages and fixed a long-standing bug which could unexpectedly disable XForms caching.
• Serialization of data. We reduced the frequency at which XForms state is serialized.
• Handling of namespaces. XML namespaces used with XPath expressions are handled in a more efficient way.
• Static XPath analysis. We have been working hard on a major performance feature: static analysis of XPath expressions in XForms. This feature is mostly written in Scala! It is not fully complete yet but getting there.
• Unit tests. Orbeon Forms has now over 400 automatic server-side unit tests and a growing number of client-side unit tests as well.
4. Orbeon Forms enhancements
• Section templates. We fixed bugs related to the use of XML Schema and multiple languages in section templates.
• XPL comments. Orbeon Forms now has XML / HTML comments support in XPL and in the XForms engine.
• Portlet support. We implemented separate deployment with portlets and lots of fixes towards supporting Form Runner as a portlet. We are still working on this so stay tuned!
• New XPath functions. Some convenient internationalization (i18n) functions: xxforms:lang() and xxforms:format-message(); the long-needed get-request-path(); and we implemented the current() function from XForms which somehow had been missing in action.
• Accessibility improvements. We implemented a series of accessibility (a11y) tweaks, mainly to address screen reader compliance, related to xforms:message, Dialog Select, Box Selector, the Error Summary, and more!
• New US State control. Orbeon Forms has a new and easy to use "US State" XBL control.
5. Upgrades
• YUI 2.8.1. We have completed the upgrade to YUI 2.8.1. You can get this in the nightly builds.
• HttpClient 4. We upgraded HttpClient from version 3.1 to version 4.
6. Documentation, how-tos, and examples
• Load balancing. Are you load balancing Tomcat servers with Apache? See how to configure Apache properly and the impact of Apache's MPM.
• Dynamic dropdowns tip. Super simple example of a dynamic dropdown with values ranging from 1 to a configurable maximum.
• Overriding Orbeon resources. Interested in deploying Orbeon Forms without changing any file in the war? This is how to do it for Tomcat and WebLogic.
• XSLT programming mistakes. Mike Kay on "The ten most common XSLT programming mistakes".
• CSS alignment tip. Vertically aligning an icon next to a form control might not be as simple you'd expect.
7. XForms Working group at W3C
• XForms Working Group rechartering. The W3C XForms group got re-chartered in May for two extra years.
• XForms 1.1 Quick Reference. Steven Pemberton has just updated the XForms 1.1 Quick Reference.
• New features. The Group is discussing upcoming XForms 1.2 features.

Enjoy,

-The Orbeon Team