By Chris Herborth
XForms is the next generation of Web-based data processing. It replaces traditional HTML forms with an XML data model and presentation elements. In this three-part series, you'll be introduced to XForms and its capabilities, including the basic XForms model and form, the various types of controls, and basic and advanced form submission. This article covers how XForms actually works, and shows you how to set up XForms with Firefox and Microsoft® Internet Explorer so that you can view your XForms samples.
Introduction
XForms is gaining momentum rapidly, with support available for common browsers using extensions or plugins, and through things like the IBM® Workplace Forms technology (see the Resources section to find out more). Its flexibility and power make it attractive to Web developers, and its small footprint and client-side processing make it attractive to systems administrators. The W3C is currently reviewing XForms 1.1 as a Working Draft document (1.0 is an official Internet Recommendation, which puts it on par with things like XHTML, PNG, and CSS), and IBM is currently spearheading an effort to merge competing XML-based forms' standards with the features and abilities of XForms.
This article explains the evolution of forms from simple text searches to today's interactive masterpieces and explains the next step in Web forms, XForms. It explains what makes XForms different and gets the user ready for Part 2 by setting up his or her environment.
Read on to see how a simple HTML form can be replaced with a simple XForms form, and how you can use XForms' capabilities to save (and reload later) a form's data to a local file.
If you'd like to follow along with the XHTML and XForms documents discussed in this article, grab the archive linked in the Downloads section. It contains the files you're going to look at, which you can use as a starting point for your own XForms experimentation.
You'll also be installing an XForms extension that lets you view XForms documents directly in current versions of Firefox, Internet Explorer, Seamonkey, or Mozilla. If you don't currently have one of these excellent, standards-compliant browsers installed, now's a good time to get one.
XForms is gaining momentum rapidly, with support available for common browsers using extensions or plugins, and through things like the IBM® Workplace Forms technology (see the Resources section to find out more). Its flexibility and power make it attractive to Web developers, and its small footprint and client-side processing make it attractive to systems administrators. The W3C is currently reviewing XForms 1.1 as a Working Draft document (1.0 is an official Internet Recommendation, which puts it on par with things like XHTML, PNG, and CSS), and IBM is currently spearheading an effort to merge competing XML-based forms' standards with the features and abilities of XForms.
This article explains the evolution of forms from simple text searches to today's interactive masterpieces and explains the next step in Web forms, XForms. It explains what makes XForms different and gets the user ready for Part 2 by setting up his or her environment.
Read on to see how a simple HTML form can be replaced with a simple XForms form, and how you can use XForms' capabilities to save (and reload later) a form's data to a local file.
If you'd like to follow along with the XHTML and XForms documents discussed in this article, grab the archive linked in the Downloads section. It contains the files you're going to look at, which you can use as a starting point for your own XForms experimentation.
You'll also be installing an XForms extension that lets you view XForms documents directly in current versions of Firefox, Internet Explorer, Seamonkey, or Mozilla. If you don't currently have one of these excellent, standards-compliant browsers installed, now's a good time to get one.
