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.

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 stan

XForms in Mozilla

[niff]

vote here [mozilla.org] 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

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).

But what about IE?

[jvj24601]

But if IE doesn't move forward to implement these recommendations [slashdot.org], 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 [thirdeyemedia.net]

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

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

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 [dubinko.info] (warning: the page is 1/2Mb).

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 configura

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">

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."

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

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...

[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

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 s

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.

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 [w3.org] details it.