XForms: XML Powered Web Forms

Praise for XForms: XML Powered Web Forms

“XForms is an exciting new technology for designing Web forms in an elegant and accessible way. Raman’s book provides strong motivations for flexibility in the design of human-machine interactions, and explains how to use XForms to this end in crystal-clear prose.”

         —Eve Maler
             XML Standards Architect, Sun Microsystems

“Interactive forms technology is the logical evolution of Web user interface design. XForms represents a significant leap forward in that evolution.”

         —Sean McGrath
             CTO, Propylon

“The greatest strength of this book is the skill with which T. V. Raman links the XForms technology with the larger context of the Web. The limitations of HTML forms, the ways in which XForms provides a better foundation for Web and Web service user interfaces, and the opportunities for an XForms-powered Web that is accessible to all users and devices are outlined and brought together in a compelling way.”

         —Michael Champion
             Advisory Research and Development Specialist, Software AG

“Raman’s book gives the reader an excellent explanation of the emerging W3C XForms recommendation. It’s a well-organized and well-written book that begins with a gentle introduction to the concepts that motivated the development of XForms and then provides a reasonable overview of the relevant XML technology related to XForms. Most of the book covers XForms components: user interface controls, model properties, functions, actions, and events. It concludes with XForms as a Web service, offering multi-modal access and accessibility. In light of the October 2003 deadline for U.S. federal agencies to comply with the mandate of the Government Paperwork Elimination Act (GPEA) to give citizens the opportunity to provide information online, this important technical work comes none too soon. As T. V. masterfully elucidates, XForms provides the ‘last mile’ in ‘connecting users to their data.’ Insightfully, he also observes ‘the document is the human interface’ to data—an understanding without which the challenge to make eGov services ‘citizen-centered’ simply cannot and will not be met.”

         —Owen Ambur
             Cofounder and Cochair, XML Working Group, U.S. CIO Council

“I found the author’s straightforward style quite comfortable and informative. I heartily recommend this book, especially for government XML developers interested in the broader area of E-Forms. Understanding XForms is key to developing robust and flexible E-Forms solutions that separate content, logic, validation, and presentation. You’ll never look at (X)HTML forms the same way after reading Raman’s book.”

         —Kenneth Sall
             GSA eGov Technical Architect/XML Specialist, SiloSmashers

“Reusable components such as E-Forms are at the heart of the U.S. Federal Enterprise Architecture and E-Government, and XML standards-based solutions are starting to appear for use across the government. T. V. Raman’s book meticulously explains how XForms leverage the power of using XML for E-Forms and have been designed to abstract much of XML’s functionality into a set of components referred to as MVC (Model, View, Controller), which separates the model from its final presentation. This XForms component architecture serves as an excellent roadmap for the reader. T. V. eloquently shows how XForms make the original promise of ‘the document is the interface’ a reality so the collected data can be directly submitted to a Web service—thus putting a human face on Web services!”

—Brand Niemann, Ph.D., Chair, XML Web Services Working Group, U.S. CIO Council

XForms—XML-powered Web forms—are set to replace HTML forms as the backbone of electronic commerce. XForms enable the creation and editing of structured XML content within a familiar Web browser environment, which is likely to play a key role in enabling simple browser-based access to Web services. XForms leverage the power of XML in modeling, collecting, and serializing user input. In this book, World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) XForms specification editor T. V. Raman explains how programmers can create durable and dependable feature-rich forms accessible from multiple platforms and devices and available in multiple languages and modes.

XForms play a key role in connecting humans to information technologies, deployed as Web services. This book begins by providing an overview of the XForms technology and the set of XML standards on which it is built, including XML Path Language (XPath), Dom2 events, XML events, XML namespaces, and XML Schema. Part II profiles the XForms architecture and its components. An introduction to the available user interface controls leads into a guide to creating complex user interfaces. The following chapters describe XForms model properties, functions, actions, and events. Each chapter’s increasingly complex examples illustrate the concepts discussed. The final part of the book details how XForms will be used to create a new generation of human-centric, multimodal, accessible Web transactions.

Readers will learn:

XForms will transform the way companies and consumers handle Web transactions. XForms: XML Powered Web Forms provides Web developers, IT professionals, and Web server administrators with a firm grasp of this standard, how it will shape emerging solutions, and how it will change the nature of their day-to-day work.