Why Do XForms Now?

Steven Pemberton, CWI, Amsterdam and W3C
Chair, W3C HTML and Forms Working Groups

Mark Seaborne, Origo Services: Using XForms

TV Raman, IBM Research: XForms – Usable And Accessible By Design

Mark Birbeck, xport.net: Implementation

John Boyer, PureEdge Solutions Inc.: Security

XForms 1.0: en route to success!

XForms 1.0 was released October 2003. On the day of release there were more implementations than any other W3C specification on the day of release, ever.

Around 30 implementations announced so far, including plugins, native implementations, proxies, 'zero install' implementations, a voice-browser, an editor, a validator...

From companies such as: IBM, Novell, Oracle, Sun, xport.net, ...

Major companies and industries are already using XForms (e.g. US Navy, Bristol-Myers-Squibb, Frauenhofer, Daiwa - a Japanese Bank, the British Life Insurance industry, German shipbuilders ... and more I can't tell you about yet: watch this space!)

HTML Forms: a great success

Introduced in 1993, HTML Forms have become a great success: the basis of the e-commerce revolution!

What do we use forms for?

Searching

Buying

Logging in

Configuring hardware

Reading mail

Composing email

Etc etc

• Tracking packages
• calculating currencies
• submitting taxes
• banking
• expenses
• calendars
• blogging
• ...

So why XForms at all?

After a decade of experience with HTML Forms, we now know more about what we need and how to achieve it

What's wrong with HTML Forms?

• No type checking: too much ping-ponging with the server
• Mixing of presentation, data and function
• Impoverished data model
• Reliance on scripting
• Hard to integrate into existing data streams
• Hard to make cross-device for single authoring
• Hard to pre-load data into a form
• Great for simple forms, hell for complex forms
• Hard to manage
• Internationalisation problems
• Accessibility problems

What does XForms do to change all this?

The central ideas of XForms are that:

• It separates off the databeing collected, and its related logic (the 'model') from the markup for the controls to enter and change that data
• It represents the controls only on the basis of their intent – what they are meant to do – leaving the author and the device more freedom to adapt the presentation to fit.
• The data is anyXML document; the controls can bind to any element or attribute in it

What does XForms give us?

• Better user experience
• Easier to author and maintain complicated forms
• Declarative: no scripting
• It supports common usage: repeating structures, wizards, loading and saving to files
• It is XML, it can submit XML, it combines existing XML technologies
• Integrates into existingdata streams: existing schemas, SOAP and XML RPC, no new server infrastructure
• Device independent
• Non Parochial(International friendly) (d16n)
• Accessible
• Not only for forms!
• Royalty-free and unencumbered

Conclusions

It looks like it is going to be the year of XForms

XForms has hit a nerve, and is supplying a need: industry reponse has been incredible.

More information: www.w3.org/Markup/Forms