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

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.

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">

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.