Hey guys, big fan of the recent Alagad posts and this new project.  I
currently handle my validation on a per-form basis using Dan Switzer's
qForms for client-side and my own set of checks on the server side.
It works fine but I see Validat as a way to abstract these various
rules (and occasional overlaps in logic) into something more logical.

I'm currently going through a massive rewrite of my application from
my home-grown framework to Model-glue with Transfer and Coldspring.
I've completed refactoring my API onto Transfer/Coldspring and my next
steps are to rewrite the front-end using Model-glue.  Can you throw
out some ideas on how Validat might work in the following scenarios?

* Various views of a single form based on permissions; admins may see
an almost identical form as other users but with additional fields.
In the admin case, some fields may no longer be required or may have
relaxed rules.

* Translating Validat rules into client-side validation (via JS?) for
usability

* Giving end-users the ability to create/manage rules from the
browser  (e.g., dynamic user-buildable forms with validation)

Thanks for releasing this - I'm looking forward to giving it a shot!

Brian

Brian,

I will just hit your questions one at a time ...

1.       For different "views" of the same form, Validat makes use of the
concept of a data set to group data elements (form fields) with validation
rules.  You could quite easily have a second data set (adminForm) that had a
different set of rules and validate the form data against that data set if
the form is submitted by an admin user.  There would probably be some
duplication of effort in the data set between the two forms, but we could
look into possibly "extending" a data set in a future release.

2.       Translating validation into client-side validation has been
discussed already for Validat, but has been discusses, but not implemented
yet.  The current line of thinking is that the code would have to be
abstracted out so that we could have a JavaScript code generator as well as
ActionScript, etc. as well.  If you have some ideas for how you would like
to see this work, feel free to throw them out.

3.       As for creating rules via the UI, this was the reason we gave
Validat a full API in addition to the XML configuration file.  By using the
API, you can add/update/remove data sets, data elements, and assertions /
rules all programmatically.  This way, you could potentially store the rules
in a database and load them into Validat using the API, thus allowing you to
create and manage those rules and the forms they apply to via your web
application.

If you have any other questions, feel free to ask.

Thanks

-- Jeff

Jeff Chastain

Senior Software Developer

Alagad, Inc.

www.alagad.com

1-888-ALAGAD4 ext. 4