Re: Creating GFD files - Manual/Script/Designer

[Randall Whitman]

> For a long time I've been thinking about a feature in gnue-forms to pass
> a connection and table name, let database introspection find out the
> schema of the table, and dynamically build a form to edit all fields of
> this database.

That definitely is an interesting idea, GFD-less operation with default/
non-customized forms.  For straightforward applications, that would avoid
the need to deploy GFD files separate from deploying the schema, while
also avoiding adding meta-tables to the schema (as does Kexi).
Such feature has potential to be of immediate use to me.
Making a note to keep an eye out for schema/introspection code in Designer
that may be adaptable for shared use by Forms & Designer.

> Obviously it would be absurd that the database introspection part
> creates an XML file/stream which gnue-forms later has to parse again -
> better we would just dynamically build the object tree in memory. Of
> course we could then always run dumpXML on the object tree root to get
> an XML file out of it.
> (Actually I think it is designer's way of working anyway to create the
> object tree in memory and on save do a dumpXML)

Restated, and/or adding additional perspectives:
* For default/non-customized forms, output of the GFD-XML file is
  superfluous, and file-less operation would be better.
* A generated GFD-XML file could be of use as a starting point, for manual
  customization of the form (looking forward also to customization
  through Designer).
* Source code generating the new-style object tree, could be of use to adapt
  for Designer, or for sharing between Forms & Designer.

/Randall