Reason Developer Zone

JavaScript Thor Form Creator

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• Description: The form content manager in Reason uses a flash based form creation tool that is not extensible and needs to be replaced with a JavaScript based tool.
• Current State: In Planning
• Deadline: Not currently defined
• Project Lead: nwhite
• Scale: medium
• Initiation Date: Not entered
• Detailed Info:

  [June 19, 2008]
  

  Thor has seen major upgrades over the last couple years, but the core tool in Reason used to create forms has not changed at all. In fact, we cannot really update the tool because I don't think we have the original .fla file, only the .swf file. The current flash based form creation tool should be replaced by a JavaScript based tool that can read and write Thor XML.

  There are some huge advantages to this approach - these are a few:
  

  • The Reason Virtual Machine can be distributed with a working form content manager that does not require non-free open source software to be added to the Ubunutu disto after download
  • We can begin to embed more information in Thor XML since we will have a creation tool that is extensible.
  • We can address the significant usability problems that are inherent in the current tool for longer forms.
    
  • The Reason distribution can be simplified as we will no longer be forced to have a Thor directory at the web root.
  • The form content manager will work out of the box in a wider variety of environments.

  There may be existing JavaScript form creation tools that could be adapted to our purposes, but my preliminary searching has not revealed any strong candidates.

  I don't have immediate plans to start working on this, but it would be a great project for a savvy JavaScript developer (maybe external to Carleton?), and I just want to put it out there as a need in the Reason CMS. -nwhite
  

Project Types

• Improvement to Existing Functionality
• User Interface

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