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Mozilla Starts Work On XForms
AnamanFan writes "The Mozilla Foundation, with Novell and IBM, announced the formation to implement the W3C's XForms 1.0 Recommendation on the Mozilla platform. XForms is the forms module in XHTML 2, developed by the W3C. The project enables developers to deliver the type of next-generation, rich, portable web-based applications desired by corporate IT. Is this one step away from the corporate world's dependence on ActiveX? We can only hope."
Why a complicated forms standard? Is there anything that can't be done with a little JavaScript and access to the DOM?
XHTML 2 has a number of problems, from backwards-compatibility to human editability. A much better successor for HTML forms is Web Forms 2.0, which is also being worked on by Mozilla, as well as other major players in the industry. Obviously the real challenge is forcing Microsoft to support it.
- Allen Pike
Altering time, one time at a time.
From the announcemnt,
"XForms is key to realizing the vision of a future where people can access information online on any device--and do everything from shopping and banking to checking their e-mail or calendar."
Hmmmm?? I do all that on the web - shopping, banking, email, calender - right now just fine with the current generate technology. What's really new in XForms? Is there a XForms show-case or something like that out there?
Osho
Sad to say it, but if Microsoft doesnt implement XForms into IE, then it doesnt have much of a future. I'm sure visitors would just LOVE to see a site error message "I'm sorry, you must download Mozilla 8.0 to view this website". Maybe for intranets it could be used, but not on the general internet.
Has Microsoft expressed interest in implementing the standard? I hope so, since it looks pretty cool. However, it looks like MS already tackled a lot of the issues with ASP.NET (such as validation controls) so maybe they dont want to reinvent the wheel (or implement something that will help them lose one of their server platform's competitive advantages)
Where is Konqueror in this project? Will it (Konqueror) simply follow the "leaders" as it has somewhat been in other instances? How can they get involved?
BTW, if anybody knows Javascript workarounds for Combobox functionality, I'd be very happy if you could post them.
Like SVG for graphics, I think XForms is not only a useful concept if the browser supports it. I like the idea that I can currently create SVG on the server, render it on the server and send it to the browser as a PNG. I believe that there are currently products and projects available that if you have a set of XForms, allow you to turn them into a standard CGI-like application- all of the work of transforming into HTML etc. is done on the server.
I hope (cross-fingers) that in the future that I can send the original SVG/XForms/whatever to browsers that support it, and render on the server for everything else.
It's also good writing things using standards compliant products. I've currently just moved a website that relied on XSLT a lot from one software toolkit to another. This wouldn't be possible if I'd used a non-standard technology (in the sense that it worked with one toolkit only).
Parent poster wrote:
"I'm sure visitors would just LOVE to see a site error message "I'm sorry, you must download Mozilla 8.0 to view this website"
Just like I'm sure that web authors would love for 98% of their market go to their competitors who work around IE by using scripting and ActiveX (I take it that your use of the word LOVE was sarcastic). Let's face it, just because there is a standard out there doesn't mean that everyone else implements it and Microsoft loses.
In order for XForms to be a big deal, you need to have good clients and good servers, and especially good authoring. XForms isn't a magic bullet, it is a protocol, and these component software pieces don't just write themselves.
I saw a demo from some Microsoft guys recently of some forms using ASP.NET, and I must say that I was impressed by what they were doing. Their tools are really maturing.
I am not sure how X-Forms would replace ActiveX since I don't think ActiveX has anything to do with how IE displays an html form tag???
How many little things like this has various Mozilla people working on it? I'd say "ho hum", except that this project has the backing of two leading Open Source citizens, IBM and Novell. I surely hope this means increased recognition of the importance of web standards. There are too many specs that sound exciting, but never go anywhere, except to be described in some hard-to-read document on w3.org.
For those who didn't know this: one of the great things about XML is that it allows for the mixing of namespaces in a single document.
This means that different XML technologies (like XHTML, SVG, MathML, and yes, XForms) can be used in a single file.
Now if the display device (ie. browser) has support for all the used technologies, some funky things become possible.
For example, a web page could use XHTML for structuring a document, SVG for graphics, MathML for formula display and XForms for data input.
Throw in some scripting, and you could for example do a function plotter as a web application, in a single document.
At this point it's not just about structured data anymore, but also about mixing-and-matching technologies to create applications. And XForms is one of the building blocks that will hopefully make this possible.
Wenn ist das Nunstruck git und Slotermeyer? Ja!... Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!
I find combo boxes good since they greatly reduce UI complexity. Just imagine a form where you're supposed to pick a country. That implies a ton of choices, so you'd probably go for a text box where a user can just type in the country name. But then you risk having users mistyping the country name, and if these form results are to be analyzed for statistics, a computer will have no idea what "Swtzerland" is. So to be sure to get better data, you need a list box with hundreds of items?
And now imagine that times 5, if you have a couple of more large selections like that.
The user would be overwhelmed...
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
What about XUL? Throw away the need to be contained in HTML and make a real thin-client markup language. Then, if you need to display HTML (you know, hyper-text-markup-language, not web applications), you do it using the XUL tag for an HTML widget. XUL tags are course enough that it could be used on multiple platforms, rendered specially for the handicapped, etc.
If we're truly talking "next generation" here, do somethign revolutionary enough to truly be advantageous, not something pitifully incremental.
Secondly is that MS controls the desktop but it does not control mobile devices. Worse its own browser on mobiles devices is even worse then desktop IE. It may have changed recently but I doubt it.
So if the big boys really are going to push this I fear MS might just have to follow, just as MS recently realised it could not keep stringing IE6 along forever.
As for regular home users. Try this. Give my new web app customer a cd with a branded mozilla or have them use IE and handle all the security problems. Slowly people are starting to get a clue. Now it depends on the non-MS companies to exploit that.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
On the one hand I think that you are absolutely right and X-Forms will provide a simple way to help developers have their required field checking and all those dreadfully tedious things done for them. However, I am not yet convinced that it will pave the way for truly "rich" client applications.
a script+grid+control such as a grid controls, comboboxes (which someone was asking about before) and tree controls. All of which can generally be plugged into your database through the language/platform of choice.
To date, you can find rich client applications such as Oddpost http://www.oddpost.com/ that use Javascript and other IE *features* (sorry but I'm not sure if Mozilla has this) such as XML HTTP Posting to create a desktop like environment on the web with server calls behind the scenes to collect/store data. It is really a beautiful thing. There are also vendors who develop usable Javascript based components http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=jav
I am not yet convinced that the presence of X-Forms or any other lets-use-XML-for-the-sake-of-XML type technology for web interfaces will make creating usable web applications easier any time soon.
The problem is that a lot of web based applications depend on the Rich Text Editor control included with MSIE. If you look at professional CMS-applications many of them use this editor field to format content areas and this makes life a lot easier for content producers.
If Mozilla had a similar editor field that could be embedded I believe that a lot of CMS manufacturers could make cross-browser CMS-software. This could eventually lead to an easier corporate switch from IE to Mozilla.
I was reading up on XForms a bit when the story about XHTML2 was posted to /.. There were a few things of which I took note in the XForms spec:
It's nothing huge but it will make my life easier as a developer.
My username does not make me Apathetic. It's irony, get it?
What really scares me about all this is the worry about adoption rate of the standards that I see everywhere. Web standards has to be the only standardisation field where people start worrying when no standard has been released for a few years. I really cannot see the point of having standards at all if they are changed quicker than they can be sanely implemented (not to mention being used). Look at successful standards efforts, the C language had its last major standard in 1999, it is far from adopted, many compilers still only offer the older 1989 standard and most projects still stick to that one as well. It is however important to note that it took the better part of the nineties to get most code over to the -89 standard and no one particularly worried. Another example is postscript, first standard (level 1) 1984, second 1991, third 1998. These are not even a standards organisations work but in-house at Adobe, and you know what? Many applications still don't support all the features of level 2, 13 years after its release.
Overall a standards effort should in no way be ongoing like the W3C, one needs to get one more or less complete (a bit flawed is OK, a few inconsistencies are easier to handle than having tons of standards to support) and then leave it be for a decade or so while working on the next iteration. Only then will anyone be able to base a sane software project on the foundation provided.
As I said, I know of no standards in history (at least no successful ones) that have been as floating and ever-changing as the web standards. It is no wonder that web-browsers are the huge monoliths of software they are. Web publication is not an intrinsically hard problem, it is just a badly handled problem.
Mozilla already has XUL (pronounced "zool" as in cool). It provides rich application ability to be served via the web. (In other words, equivalent to upcoming MS Avalon except XUL has years of use and stability.) XUL works on any computer/OS that has Mozilla or Firefox running so it is cross-platform compatible.
Website for XUL:
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/xul/
Nice example application developed in XUL.
Click on "Try MAB 1.2" to run the application.
http://mab.mozdev.org/
I would love to have XForms included..i read some of the comments that mention they are usless... ..
:") ....
..sorry..
U haven't coded js checking code so u dont know how ugly and bad this approach is... or u didnt try to think of a numerous ways how to present db data
XForms at start may be a little complicated, but after they arrive they will be accumulated into the Frameworks..
XForm or if some similar approach is choosen will give the ability to programmers to separate the logic from the presentation..
Many web developers currently use MVC tools (model-view-controler) to separate DB,HTML output and the buisness logic.
The most important thing is Logical separation, especialy when many ppl programmers and non-programmers work on a project.
Opposite approach of MVC is the way ASP&PHP pages are done (i dont follow them anymore, they have to have now also some MVC frameworks), where html&js&server-side code are munged like spagetty nightmare.
This style dosent work for big projects.
I dont care if they are not implemented in IE (even if it has 101% of the market), i need them for in-house apps.
If u want to sell app then give your users a Knoppix-CD and u are OK.
flame bait now commencing
In fact I'm tired of this web dominance and desktop dominance, X% share articles.. when linux will take the desktop..!? and so on..
Who cares I'm using it now and it work for me.
WHEN U WILL UNDERSTAND most of the hard-time lunux users dont want to conquer the world. They want things to work their way. end of story.. if u dont like it that way then we are OK, use whatever suits your needs dont complain.
If u want something to be easier to U pay someone, do it yourself, or help someone to make it happen.
Companies want to take the world, so they have money and they are doing things their way... so we will cooperate on the ways that are common to us and will divide on things we are different.
end of the flame