Phil Booth's blog

I've just finished implementing a new feature in the Sidewinder Viewer, which further simplifies the task of turning any web page into a desktop application. If invoked with a command line argument that specifies the document to load, the viewer now also checks the fragment identifier for the presence of a meta XPointer scheme. The expression associated with this scheme allows you to set a number of application-level properties, such as the window title, height, width, position and so on.

I've just written a new tutorial, describing how to write an XForms application that overlays data from a BBC Backstage feed onto a Google Map. The application is pretty short and straightforward, but it also provides a cogent illustration of the advantages that the XForms model can bring, even to non-XForms user interfaces.

We've just added a new tutorial to the site, demonstrating some basic techniques which allow you to embed XHTML documents inside your .NET applications. They rely upon our Renderer COM component, which is installed as part of the Sidewinder Viewer. The first tutorial is very straightforward; in later ones we shall demonstrate more exciting features, such as event-based communication between the live document and your application.

An important feature of formsPlayer 1.5 has been the development of richer form controls, implemented using XBL and SVG. The screenshot here shows a simple XForms output control styled to look like an LED display.

The effect is achieved by adding an appearance attribute to the control, so that the functionality is non-invasive to other XForms processors (and, indeed, to earlier versions of formsPlayer):

<xf:output ref="clock" appearance="fp:LED" class="clock" />