The book in your hands introduces you to XForms, a combination of two of the most successful experiments ever performed with the Web: XML and forms.
2003 marks the 10-year anniversary of forms on the Web. During that time, the Web grew from a loose collection of technical research sites to the livelihood of millions, browser empires have risen and fallen, and the tech economy went through an inflationary period of cosmic proportions only to collapse back in upon itself. The addition of forms to the otherwise static HTML language in 1993 was a revolutionary step forward, making possible Yahoo!, Google, Amazon, Hotmail, and countless other interactive sites.
During the mid-nineties, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) began work on XML, a uniform way to represent structured text and data, in an attempt to simplify an earlier language called SGML. XML became a W3C Recommendation in 1998, and has since gained momentum, becoming the foundation for XHTML, SVG, the Universal Business Language (UBL), syndication formats such as RSS, and DocBook (which was used to write this book). Nearly every data format that consists primarily of human-readable data has been influenced by XML.
2003 marks the 10-year anniversary of forms on the Web. During that time, the Web grew from a loose collection of technical research sites to the livelihood of millions, browser empires have risen and fallen, and the tech economy went through an inflationary period of cosmic proportions only to collapse back in upon itself. The addition of forms to the otherwise static HTML language in 1993 was a revolutionary step forward, making possible Yahoo!, Google, Amazon, Hotmail, and countless other interactive sites.
During the mid-nineties, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) began work on XML, a uniform way to represent structured text and data, in an attempt to simplify an earlier language called SGML. XML became a W3C Recommendation in 1998, and has since gained momentum, becoming the foundation for XHTML, SVG, the Universal Business Language (UBL), syndication formats such as RSS, and DocBook (which was used to write this book). Nearly every data format that consists primarily of human-readable data has been influenced by XML.
You should read this book if you want to:
- Create XForms files in a text or XML editor
- Convert existing forms (electronic or paper) to XForms
- Collect XML data from users in a user-friendly way
- Reduce the amount of JavaScript needed within browser interfaces
- Increase the security and reliability of your current information system by combining client-side and server-side checks into a common code base
- Understand how to create interactive web sites using the latest standard technology
