RFC: Postal Address Input / Display Formatting

[Joe Eckard]

I would like to help improve postal address input and formatting in  
OFBiz to provide better support for international customers and  
shipments.

The general idea is that a specified country would change how the  
postal address input form is arranged and labeled, and how the postal  
address is formatted for display. This would have a side effect of  
consolidating the input and display formatting into central locations.

No data model changes are required, though a case could be made for  
adding a field "address3" to the postal address entity.

To start, this could be as simple as having two generic templates:

        Address 1
        Address 2
        Address 3*
        City, State, Postal Code

        or

        Address 1
        Address 2
        Address 3*
        Postal Code, City, State

        (this is how UPS handles formatting for their Smart Labels, except  
they display Address 321 instead of 123)

and then adding more country-specific templates as desired.

Is there any additional interest in this? Any comments or suggestions?

-Joe


links:

        http://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OFBIZ-203 - discussion related  
to a proposed freemarker implementation from 2006

        http://www.upu.int/post_code/en/postal_addressing_systems_member_countries.shtml 
  - address formats

        http://xml.coverpages.org/Lubenow-UPUS42.html - UPU S42 Standard on  
International Postal Address Components and Templates
                (fairly interesting, but not freely available and appears to only  
have XML templates for 15 countries)

[BJ Freeman]

http://docs.ofbiz.org/display/OFBIZ/Address+Schema+Change+Proposal
the formatting would be by country.


Joe Eckard sent the following on 11/6/2008 9:36 AM:

> I would like to help improve postal address input and formatting in
> OFBiz to provide better support for international customers and shipments.
>
> The general idea is that a specified country would change how the postal
> address input form is arranged and labeled, and how the postal address
> is formatted for display. This would have a side effect of consolidating
> the input and display formatting into central locations.
>
> No data model changes are required, though a case could be made for
> adding a field "address3" to the postal address entity.
>
> To start, this could be as simple as having two generic templates:
>
>     Address 1
>     Address 2
>     Address 3*
>     City, State, Postal Code
>
>     or
>
>     Address 1
>     Address 2
>     Address 3*
>     Postal Code, City, State
>
>     (this is how UPS handles formatting for their Smart Labels, except
> they display Address 321 instead of 123)
>
> and then adding more country-specific templates as desired.
>
> Is there any additional interest in this? Any comments or suggestions?
>
> -Joe
>
>
> links:
>
>     http://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OFBIZ-203 - discussion related
> to a proposed freemarker implementation from 2006
>
>     http://www.upu.int/post_code/en/postal_addressing_systems_member_countries.shtml -
> address formats
>
>     http://xml.coverpages.org/Lubenow-UPUS42.html - UPU S42 Standard on
> International Postal Address Components and Templates
>         (fairly interesting, but not freely available and appears to
> only have XML templates for 15 countries)

[Adrian Crum]

It would be nice to have the HTML markup include the hCard microformat:
http://microformats.org/wiki/hcard.

-Adrian

Joe Eckard wrote:

> I would like to help improve postal address input and formatting in
> OFBiz to provide better support for international customers and shipments.
>
> The general idea is that a specified country would change how the postal
> address input form is arranged and labeled, and how the postal address
> is formatted for display. This would have a side effect of consolidating
> the input and display formatting into central locations.
>
> No data model changes are required, though a case could be made for
> adding a field "address3" to the postal address entity.
>
> To start, this could be as simple as having two generic templates:
>
>     Address 1
>     Address 2
>     Address 3*
>     City, State, Postal Code
>
>     or
>
>     Address 1
>     Address 2
>     Address 3*
>     Postal Code, City, State
>
>     (this is how UPS handles formatting for their Smart Labels, except
> they display Address 321 instead of 123)
>
> and then adding more country-specific templates as desired.
>
> Is there any additional interest in this? Any comments or suggestions?
>
> -Joe
>
>
> links:
>
>     http://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OFBIZ-203 - discussion related
> to a proposed freemarker implementation from 2006
>
>     http://www.upu.int/post_code/en/postal_addressing_systems_member_countries.shtml -
> address formats
>
>     http://xml.coverpages.org/Lubenow-UPUS42.html - UPU S42 Standard on
> International Postal Address Components and Templates
>         (fairly interesting, but not freely available and appears to
> only have XML templates for 15 countries)

[BJ Freeman]

I can see this hcard, but would think it would be a contact mech form
remember addresses are permanent, people move.

Adrian Crum sent the following on 11/6/2008 10:12 AM:

> It would be nice to have the HTML markup include the hCard microformat:
> http://microformats.org/wiki/hcard.
>
> -Adrian
>
> Joe Eckard wrote:
>> I would like to help improve postal address input and formatting in
>> OFBiz to provide better support for international customers and
>> shipments.
>>
>> The general idea is that a specified country would change how the
>> postal address input form is arranged and labeled, and how the postal
>> address is formatted for display. This would have a side effect of
>> consolidating the input and display formatting into central locations.
>>
>> No data model changes are required, though a case could be made for
>> adding a field "address3" to the postal address entity.
>>
>> To start, this could be as simple as having two generic templates:
>>
>>     Address 1
>>     Address 2
>>     Address 3*
>>     City, State, Postal Code
>>
>>     or
>>
>>     Address 1
>>     Address 2
>>     Address 3*
>>     Postal Code, City, State
>>
>>     (this is how UPS handles formatting for their Smart Labels, except
>> they display Address 321 instead of 123)
>>
>> and then adding more country-specific templates as desired.
>>
>> Is there any additional interest in this? Any comments or suggestions?
>>
>> -Joe
>>
>>
>> links:
>>
>>     http://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OFBIZ-203 - discussion
>> related to a proposed freemarker implementation from 2006
>>
>>    
>> http://www.upu.int/post_code/en/postal_addressing_systems_member_countries.shtml
>> - address formats
>>
>>     http://xml.coverpages.org/Lubenow-UPUS42.html - UPU S42 Standard
>> on International Postal Address Components and Templates
>>         (fairly interesting, but not freely available and appears to
>> only have XML templates for 15 countries)
>
>