How it works | Implementations | Email List | XForms Working Group | Dependencies | Charter | Press Release | Testimonials

XForms - The Next Generation of Web Forms

"XForms" is W3C's name for a specification of Web forms that can be used with a wide variety of platforms including desktop computers, hand helds, information appliances, and even paper. Part of the HTML Activity, XForms started life as a subgroup of the HTML Working Group, but has now been spun off as an independent Working Group.

Check out our latest documents:

• XForms 1.0 Last Call Working Draft now public for review.
  The Last Call review period ends on 22 February 2002 at 2359Z. Please send review comments to www-forms-editor@w3.org(archives).
• XForms Requirements

Let us know what you think by joining the XForms public mailing list.

What Are XForms?

The current design of Web forms doesn't separate the purpose from the presentation of a form. XForms, in contrast, are comprised of separate sections that describe what the form does, and how the form looks. This allows for flexible presentation options, including classic XHTML forms, to be attached to an XML form definition.

The following illustrates how a single device-independent XML form definition, called the XForms Model, has the capability to work with a variety of standard or proprietary user interfaces:

The XForms User Interface provides a standard set of visual controls that are targeted toward replacing today's XHTML form controls. These form controls are directly usable inside XHTML and other XML documents, like SVG. Other groups, such as the Voice Browser Working Group, may also independently develop user interface components for XForms.

An important concept in XForms is that forms collect data, which is expressed as XML instance data. Among other duties, the XForms Model describes the structure of the instance data. This is important, since like XML, forms represent a structured interchange of data. Workflow, auto-fill, and pre-fill form applications are supported through the use of instance data.

Finally, there needs to be a channel for instance data to flow to and from the XForms Processor. For this, the XForms Submit Protocol defines how XForms send and receive data, including the ability to suspend and resume the completion of a form.

The following illustration summarizes the main aspects of XForms:

Key Goals of XForms

• Support for handheld, television, and desktop browsers, plus printers and scanners
• Richer user interface to meet the needs of business, consumer and device control applications
• Decoupled data, logic and presentation
• Improved internationalization
• Support for structured form data
• Advanced forms logic
• Multiple forms per page, and pages per form
• Suspend and Resume support
• Seamless integration with other XML tag sets

XForms Implementations

X-Smiles

X-Smiles is a Java-based XML browser from Helsinki University of Technology. It implements most of XForms 1.0 Last Call Working Draft, and uses XForms together with XSL-FO on the user interface side. It also supports XSLT, SMIL 1.0, SVG and more. The latest version is 0.6, released 29 April 2002.

XML WebAccess 2.0

Mozquito's new XML Web User Interface, XML WebAccess 2.0, enables standard Web browsers to become the ubiquitous application front-end for all XML-based IT systems. Based on W3C´s XForms, the official next generation of Web forms co-developed by Mozquito, XML WebAccess 2.0 is available both for IIS and Apache server software.

LiquidOffice

Cardiff has released support for both XML form definition and XML data interchange within the LiquidOffice eForm Management System, and has implemented XML data interchange for the TELEform Information Capture System.

XFE

"XFE, a forms engine developed by E-XMLMedia, radically simplifies development of forms based data entry systems. [...] XFE manages multiple rounds of interaction with the user through the user's favorite browser. The result of data entry is delivered to the web application as a validated XML document."

Chiba project

SourceForge provides an implementation of the W3C XForms standard, thereby delivering generic, xml-based form-processing for the web.

Mozilla project

Bugzilla Bug 97806 Implements W3C XForms in browser and composer.

TIBET

TIBET will be supporting some or all of the XForms standard in a future release. TIBET's support for XForms will extend to 4X browsers, allowing XForms-based applications to be constructed and deployed significantly before native XForms support is shipping in the major browsers.

NMatrix

a project to implement a matrix of standards implementations, ranging from DOM3, XmlEvents, XForms, etc.

XMLForm

XMLForm is an open source server side implementation of a subset of the XForms working draft. It is tightly integrated in Apache Cocoon and seeks to offer an immediate solution for developers interested in using the XForms standard in their applications.

TrustForm System

The TrustForm System Viewer is a client side implementation based on the XForms last working draft.

AchieveForms

AchieveForms from Business Web Software is a server-based XFORMS designer with a web browser interface that can output forms as XFORMS and can process completed forms from an XFORMS browser to email recipients, databases, and forward XML files of completed form data.

jXForms

jXForms enables working with XForms inside java based applications. It should provide abstraction from spec details to provide easier ways to manipulate XForms content. The lib should also prohibit missuse to provide failsafe usage at higher abstraction layer. The lib is open source (lpgl) and currently under developement. jXForms is able to create nearly all elements specified inside "XForms Working Draft - 18 Jannuary 2002".

The XForms Public Mailing List

www-forms@w3.org

Join the public discussion on XForms and let us know what you think. Additionally, an archive of the list is available

Subscribe/Unsubscribe:
Send an email to www-forms-request@w3.org with the word subscribe in the email subject header. (To unsubscribe, send email to the same address with the word unsubscribe in the email subject header.) .

For additional help, consult the W3C's public email list pages.

The XForms Working Group

The XForms Working Group (member only link) is open to W3C members and invited experts. The Working Group meets weekly by phone. Face to face meetings occur roughly every 3 months. We are especially interested in people with a rich experience in developing Web forms and supporting tools.

To join, ask your W3C Advisory Committee Representative to email the Working Group chairs and the W3C staff contact to confirm that your organization is prepared to commit the time and expense involved in participating in the Working Group. You will be expected to attend all Working Group meetings and to respond in a timely fashion to email requests.

Current Working Group Participants

• Steven Pemberton, W3C/CWI (co-chair)
• Sebastian Schnitzenbaumer, Mozquito Technologies (co-chair)
• Thierry Michel, W3C (staff contact)
• Rob McDougall, Adobe
• Micah Dubinko, Cardiff
• Davanum Srinivas, Computer Associates
• Driss Eddaifi, Ecole Mohammadia d'Ingénieurs, Rabat, Morocco
• Vincent Godefroy, EDF R&D
• Kevin Munroe, Enosys Markets, Inc
• Michalis Petropoulos, Enosys Markets, Inc
• Peter Stark, Sony Ericsson
• Frank Boumphrey, HTML Writers Guild
• Roland Merrick, IBM
• T.V. Raman, IBM
• Gavin McKenzie, JetForm Corporation
• Ray Waldin, Lexica, LLC
• Josef Dietl, Mozquito Technologies
• Dave Hyatt, Netscape/AOL
• Eric Pollmann, Netscape/AOL
• Kazunari Kubota, NTT DoCoMo, Inc.
• Kaori Nakai, NTT DoCoMo, Inc.
• Tom Butcher, OpenDesign
• Doug Dominiak, Openwave
• Jeremy Chone, Oracle
• David Cleary, Progress Software
• John Boyer, PureEdge
• Michael Fergusson, Softquad
• Zoe Lacroix, SurroMed Inc.
• Leigh Klotz, Xerox

Invited Experts

• Tom Schnetlage, University of Berkeley
• Dan Gillman, Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics
• Mikko Honkala, Helsinki University Of Technology
• Eliot Christian, US Geological Survey
• Dave Navarro, WebGeek, Inc.
• Ashok Malhotra, XML Schema, XML Query WGs (and IBM)

Relationship to other work

This section lists known relationships to other efforts, and which Working Groups we need to liaise with. Please let us know if you think we are missing something.

XHTML Modularization

XForms should fit into the framework for the modularization of XHTML. Liaison is needed with the HTML WG.

Privacy Preferences

XForms should be useable together with P3P, W3C's platform for privacy preferences. Liaison is needed with the 3P Specification WG.

XML Schemas

XForms should complement work on XML Schemas, whilst recognizing that most people wishing to create forms are unlikely to be sophisticated XML experts. Liaison is needed with the XML Schema WG.

Web Accessibility Initiative

XForms should make it easy to develop accessible documents. Liaison is needed with the WAI-PF WG.

Internationalization

XForms should support all of the world's languages. Liaison is needed with the I18N WG.

Style Sheets

XForms should be style-able with CSS and XSL. Liaison is needed with the CSS and XSL WGs (n.b. the CSS-UI proposal)

Voice Browsers

XForms should be usable from voice browsers, where users interact with forms via speech recognition and speech synthesis. Liaison is needed with the Voice Browser WG.

Synchronized multimedia

XForms should be useable in conjunction with W3C's work on synchronized multimedia. Liaison is needed with the SYMM WG.

Scaleable Vector Graphics

XForms should be useable in conjunction with W3C's work on vector graphics. Liaison is needed with the SVG WG.

Document Object Model

XForms should fit in well with W3C's work on DOM. Liaison is needed with the DOM WG.

Decimal Arithmetic

Decimal arithmetic works the way we were taught in schools. It represents integer and floating point numbers using base 10, and is important for financial and commercial applications. Mike Cowlishaw has put together a collection of pages giving the reasons why decimal arithmetic is important to electronic business, the historical background and the relevant standards.

Common scripting languages

XForms should avoid conceptual mismatches with scripting languages commonly used on the Web, for example ECMAScript and Java. Liaison with ECMA TC39?

A note from the editor: XForms is a word with no singular form. Other such words in the English language are:ALMS, CATTLE, CLOTHES, PLIERS, SCISSORS, and SHORTS. It is considered a misspelling to use the term "XForm" in a sentence. -MD

Past News:

• 21 January 2002: X-Smiles 0.5 has been released, a java-based XML browser implementing about 75% of XForms 1.0 Last Call Working Draft and full implementation of the XML Events Last Call Working Draft.
• 07 December 2001: An updated public Working Draft of XForms 1.0 has been published.
• 26 October 2001: X-Smiles 0.45 has been released, which has an experimental support for XML Events.
• 26 October 2001: The XML Events Working Draft has been published as a Last Call Working Draft. The Last Call review period ends on 30 November 2001. Please send review comments before the review period ends to www-html-editor@w3.org (archive).

Copyright © 1999-2001 W3C (MIT, INRIA, Keio ), All Rights Reserved. W3C liability, trademark, document use and software licensing rules apply. Your interactions with this site are in accordance with our public and Member privacy statements.