XForms, XML Events Now W3C Recommendations

leighklotz writes "XForms and XML Events are now W3C Recommendations, which gives them the same status as HTML 4.01, XHTML 1.1. XForms is a next-generation language for designing web forms and other form-based applications, and is designed to integrate into existing XML applications such as XHTML and SVG. XML Events complements XForms and other XML applications, and provides a simple XML syntax for accessing existing DOM Level 2 events. Two new book about XForms from O'Reilly and Addison-Wesley complement more than twenty implementations, ten of which are profiled on XML.com. The text of the O'Reilly book is available under the GNU FDL, and the text of the Addison-Wesley book is included on CD for accessibility." There's more -- read on below.

"Now that XForms has reached Recommendation, Star Office support for XForms is in the works, and Mozilla contributors are gearing for a Mozilla implementation to complement the three existing fullly qualified implementations: FormsPlayer Internet Explorer Plug-In from England, Open Source Java X-Smiles from Finland, and the DENG browser written in Flash from Germany.. The mobile sector is heating up again, and XForms Basic, which omits XML Schema support, is targeted as an upward-compatible implementation set for mobile devices. Personally, I'm looking forward to bringing XForms to J2ME mobile devices such as the Danger Hiptop, in order to simplify UI development.

Also reaching Recommendation status is XML Events, which complements XForms and other XML applications, and provides a simple XML syntax for accessing existing DOM Level 2 events.

Read the Press Release and Testimonials at the World-Wide Web Consortium."

leighklotz also offers a link to XForms for HTML Authors.

Comments

XFarts, XTarts and XWarts

[Anonymous Coward]

also now available as important new XML recommendations. get 'em while they last, boys. keep your skills relevant with the latest and greatest w3c committee poop. yeeehaw.

YOU ARE ALL ASSHATS __( | )__

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't you learn ASCII, you GNU hippies

[Anonymous Coward]

And Sun Microsystems is an innovator? Puhhhlease! The company supported neither J++ nor J# when it was announced.

Re:Why don't you learn ASCII, you GNU hippies

[Anonymous Coward]

Cherish my balls, tardmuffin.

W3C Recommendations?

[sh0gun]

The problem with these "Recommendations" is that they are just that, recommendations. Microsoft is the worst at following directions, let alone recommendations, so it is nice to have all these standards but if the most popular browser on the block does not support everything properly then they are useless. I think the w3c needs to work closely with Microsoft and try to get Microsoft to make Internet Explorer more compatible with all the of the existing standards.

I know that Mozilla and Opera support standards better than Internet Explorer, but at least for the time being Internet Explorer is by far the most popular browser. Because of this it is important for the w3c to get Microsoft in the game, otherwise the game will fail.

Re:W3C Recommendations?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the w3c needs to work closely with Microsoft and try to get Microsoft to make Internet Explorer more compatible with all the of the existing standards.

They've tried this, but MS refuses to cooperate towards full standards-compliance. Working with Microsoft will inevitably lead to selling out. Look at ECMA's endorsement of C#, or PivX Solutions recent removal of its IE vulnerabilities page. The standards are not useless, eventually MSIE will die, and Mozilla, Opera, or a KHTML browser will take over as leader.

Re:W3C Recommendations?

[Anonymous Coward]

It will never be in Microsoft's interests to support standards that Microsoft does not control. Microsoft is not a software company, it is a business.

XForms in Mozilla

[niff]

vote here to get XForms support in Mozilla

Re:XForms in Mozilla

[niff]

oh, i now see that the links from slashdot are not allowed. i can see why that is.
sorry about that..

you can still copy the link and go there yourself ofcourse

http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=9780 6

But what about IE?

[jvj24601]

But if IE doesn't move forward to implement these recommendations, will web sites ever take the time to implement these new technologies if Mozilla/KHTML/Opera are the only browsers supporting them?

As a web programmer, I really hope that Mozilla et. al can achieve some critical mass so that I can actually take advantage of them.

--

Third Eye Media

Re:But what about IE?

[jilles]

Choosing IE means using the state of the art in technology of 1998. That was a good choice in 2001, still defendable in 2002, somewhat backwards right now and not really an option in the future. Internet explorer is old technology, it has not evolved in any significant way since version 6.0 (two years ago) which was a somewhat disappointing minor update to the previous, much older versions in the first place.

So if Microsoft continues to ignore new interesting technologies, at some point people are going to turn away from them. Developers first, users later.

Re:But what about IE?

[Spoing]

Choosing IE means using the state of the art in technology of 1998. That was a good choice in 2001, still defendable in 2002, somewhat backwards right now and not really an option in the future. Internet explorer is old technology, it has not evolved in any significant way since version 6.0 (two years ago) which was a somewhat disappointing minor update to the previous, much older versions in the first place.

While I agree it is disapointing -- IE is quite dated -- MS has no plans to upgrade IE outside of the current shipping operating systems. Because of that, most people (who use Windows) will stick with the version that they currently have -- security defects, lack of features, and all.

I would hope that this would open up a chance that Mozilla and Firebird will become more widely used, though after installing it for my immediate family and even giving them a good tour, I have a hit rate of only 1 out of 4 (parents use Firebird), and for friends the ratio is even lower (1 switched and he uses Linux too). It's an even harder sell to folks at work who will oooh! and ahhhh!, consider that there must be a catch, and then continue to use IE. Without looking like some kind of freak, it's hard to get anyone to consider switching.

With the horridness that is IE -- and people still think it and Windows is great for some reason -- I see little chance that Microsoft will all the sudden wake up and improve the browser for all Windows users. I doubt we'll see much except for a "me too" release for XP users to clone some of the Mozilla/Opera/Firebird features, followed by nothing of note till the next big Windows release (Longhorn anyone?).

That said, I'm slowly comming to the conclusion that it's a good idea to "have a secret weapon" (use open source and any other good tools) without promoting others use them.

Why give someone {insert favorite deity}-like power when you can instead just have that power for yourself and look like that much more of an expert?

(Posted from Mozilla with 18 windows up and each with 4-20 tabs each.)

Re:But what about IE?

[Dark Fire]

How about a gecko activex plugin for IE? Gecko is Mozilla's rendering engine.

Direct link to book

[darkpurpleblob]

Full book text (warning: the page is 1/2Mb).

XML Editor that makes use of XForms

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi, one company just released today a new kind of xml editor (coincidence?), free trial version for windows and linux is available at http://www.lumrix.net/x2u/

Their approach seems to make sense (taken from their website):

existing XML editors still ignore the fact that users don't want to read XML markup. Our view is: Not users have to align to XML, but XML has to align to users. Users fill out simple web forms, which are automatically derived from XML models.

Re:XML Editor that makes use of XForms

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi, one company just released today/
Their approach seems to make sense

See, you tried to pretend you weren't shilling for your company...

Our view is: Not users have to align to XML,

...but you forgot to proofread and let the 'our' slip through.

Standards spam

[Jon Peterson]

Ah, another day, another XML-based 'standard' from the w3c.

Yeah, we really need a world-wide standard for describing form like interfaces - I mean with the current chaos it's a miracle anyone anyone can build a UI at all. Maybe the w3c would like to consider these additional standards:

Xcolour - an XML based standard for defining colours. Instead of conflicting standards such as RGB, CMYK, Pantone, colours will now be defined according to a really complex XML markup system.

Xconfig - an XML based configuration file standard. The many different types of configuration file used by programs around the world is confusing. All programs should now use configuration files based on this w3c standard. Because we says so and we are the w3c dammit.

Xeverything - an XML based standard for describing everything in the world from fundamental concepts such as 'entity' up through 'thing' and 'person' onto high level items such as 'employee' and '512Mb DIMM'. Yes everything. EVERYTHING. In XML. Uh-uh, really.

Ha ha! Surprise! Fooled you! The last of these is actually not a joke and is being created by the w3c under the name 'semantic web', although Xtowerofbabel, or Xjobsforw3cmembers or Xwelikethesoundofourownvoices would be more sensible names.

Sigh.

Re:Standards spam

[jafuser]

Don't give them any ideas.

I imagine if they had their way, it'd take 4000 bytes of XML to do the W3C-approved equivalent of:

<font color="red">

XML is not the solution to everything

[jafuser]

XML is good for many things. It's even perfect for some. But it's not a "universal format". Too many people are making every problem out to be nail, and think that XML is the hammer. Not every problem is a nail.

I'm becoming more and more disenfranchised with the W3C as time goes on. They are becoming another example of design-by-committee. They are continuing to abandon the KISS principle in favor of "make everything fit, no matter the complexity".

I'll admit some of the stuff in these specifications looks interesting, but it doesn't really add anything to the capabilities we have already, and probably has about as much chance of being implemented as IPv6.

If they really wanted to do something useful...

[jafuser]

If they really wanted to do something useful, they could have worked on designing standards for some new HTML form types to gather data that is currently complicated to gather with the form elements that we currently have available, such as:

Select a date:
<input type="date" ...>
(displays a calendar widget)

Select a time:
<input type="time" ...>
(displays a clock widget)

Select a color:
<input type="color" ...>
(displays a color selection palette widget)

Select a coordinate:
<input type="map" src="/mymap.png" ...>
(displays an image map, with a visual mark where you clicked on the map, with an option to allow the user to select multiple)

Select a number from a range:
<input type="slider" minval=1 maxval=10 ...>
(displays a slider widget)

I think implementing new form inputs like these would be a lot more useful than reinventing the wheel.

Re:If they really wanted to do something useful...

[Anonymous Coward]

You! Get back to work programming Visual Basic...

Re:If they really wanted to do something useful...

[xyu]

Some of the things you mentioned are in there, namely data, time, and sliders (range). The last link details it.

Re:If they really wanted to do something useful...

[jafuser]

I primarily program Java for JSP/Servlets thank you very much =)

These widget types that are missing are not easy to replicate using plain HTML.

A calendar can be replaced by a MM/DD/YY select lists, but those are much more cumbersome to use, and allow the user to select impossible combinations (February 31 for example), which then require error handling. It's always best to create a situation where it's impossible for the user to input erroneous information to begin with.

A clock can also be replaced with existing elements (two select boxes or two text boxes), but it would be nice to have a standard and easy-to-use input widget which would only allow valid values.

Palettes can be simulated with a DHTML panel, but again, this is a cumbersome and limiting form of input.

I'll admit sliders are probably a bit frivolous, but it would save some time and frustration with error checking range values.

I can jump into DHTML to replicate all of these, but with DHTML, things get difficult for compatibility and accessibility.

Re:If they really wanted to do something useful...

[JonnyQabbala]

Dont stop there, how about: Enter your credit card (Validates CC info) or one of hundreds of little things that make eCommerce a pain in the butt.

Re:If they really wanted to do something useful...

[aridhol]

A calendar can be replaced by a MM/DD/YY select lists, but those are much more cumbersome to use, and allow the user to select impossible combinations (February 31 for example), which then require error handling. It's always best to create a situation where it's impossible for the user to input erroneous information to begin with.

Ack! You're saying that, if the page automatically forced correct values, you wouldn't handle errors?!

Remember, your attacker (always assume that you have one, and that he's smarter than you) has direct access to the HTTP protocol. If he discovers that all your validation is on the client side, he has an easy way into your site, through invalid form inputs. A little trial-and-error, and he can break a database query. From there, it's simple for him to grab anything that's in the database.

Re:If they really wanted to do something useful...

[StrawberryFrog]

If he discovers that all your validation is on the client side

Sigh. The valid point that one should do server side validation is not a counterargument to the point that preventing invalid user input is far better than correcting it. Validation on the client side e.g. a MS-style calendar widget does not stop one from doing server-side checks against intensionally malformed input.

In short, do both.

what vote?

[axxackall]

I thought W3C approval should be enough for Mozilla team to admit that Xforms is the same web standard as (X)HTML and therefore it must be supported by the web-browser without any plugin (natively).

You joke, but...

[the quick brown fox]

According to my HTML editor's built-in HTML validator:

"WARNING: In HTML 4.0, FONT is deprecated. It may become obsolete in future versions, consider using style sheets instead."

Re:You joke, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

::chuckle::

They can take my FONT tag when they pry it from my cold dead hands.

XForms?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wasn't XForms the name of a widget library on IRIX?

I like how these web people just take names and claim them as their own...