Paul,
I have been playing with a Free Trial of Alpha-5 and they have a feature that I think would be wonderful if FireFly had. Tht is Style Sheets
The way it works is: You define a style sheet, colors (BG/FG), button sizes, form backgrounds, etc. Then when you start a new project you select the style sheet for that project and as you add controls to your forms the colors, sizes, fonts are set for those controls based on the style sheet. (Of coarse you can modify them, if need be) This is a real time saver when building a new project.
Here's a link to a video that shows what I mean:
That sounds neat. I don't see your link, though?
That does sound like a pretty cool idea.
Sorry here's some links:
http://developerreviewed.com/Reviews/WindowsDatabaseApplicationTools/AlphasoftwareAlphaFive/tabid/67/Default.aspx
http://support.alphasoftware.com/alphafivehelp/Methods/FORM.CREATE().htm
http://support.alphasoftware.com/alphafivehelp/User_Manual/Setting_Form_Properties.htm
I think most of the newer Wed development packages can use or build style sheets (CSS cascading style sheets) Adobe, MS Expressions ect.....I've played with them and it does save a lot of time. Every page can have the same look & feel based on a master or you can customize to your hearts desire.
I'd hate to see FF3 forms based on XML or something like it. I think all the CSS info is in XML,XMLs. That said, there are a lot things that use it. Seems to be a standard now. Isn't the MS word .docx in XMLs? I read someplace it was.
Doug