Can you specify the title for xforms message boxes?

Question

The web client of our application makes use of xforms. A message box pops up if an error occurs during validation, and the title of the message box currently shows to the name of the application (e.g. Microsoft Internet Explorer).

(The graphics function is malfunctioning, so I cannot upload a screenshot.)

I am trying to find out if it is possible to change the title to something more meaningful. Looking at the xforms specification, section 10.6 (http://www.w3.org/TR/xforms11/#action-message) describes the message element and it does not appear to allow the title to be specified.

Could anybody please confirm/deny that the titles cannot be specified for message boxes invoked from xforms?

Thank you.

Andy

Answer 1

I agree with you that it could be nice to allow a title.

The Javascript alert() function doesn't allow this and an XForms implementation using it for rendering messages (such as XSLTForms) should render them differently, typically with z-index (as EMC Formula).

This can certainly be considered for XForms 1.2.

-Alain

Answer 2

As mentioned earlier by Alain, you indeed cannot specify what the title of the dialog should be, or even if you want the dialog to have a title. Orbeon Forms now uses a modal HTML dialog, instead of the JavaScript alert(), to allow the XForms test suite to be automated, and right now the title is always "Message".

An implementation could decide not to show a title at all, or to allow XForms authors to specify the title with an extension, say:

<xforms:message>
    <xxforms:label>My fancy alert dialog title</xxforms:label>
    Hey, this is something you should be aware of!
</xforms:message>