What Are XForms?

Think about how many times a day you use forms, electronic or otherwise. On the Web, forms have become commonplace for search engines, polls, surveys, electronic commerce, and even on-line applications. Nearly all user interaction on the Web is through forms of some sort. This ubiquitous technology, however, is showing its age. It predates XML by half a decade, which is a contributing factor to some of its limitations:

• Poor integration with XML
• Limited features make even common tasks dependent on scripting
• Device dependent, running well only on desktop browsers
• Blending of purpose and presentation
• Limited accessibility features

A new technology, XForms, is under development within the W3C and aims to combine XML and forms. The design goals of XForms meet the shortcomings of HTML forms point for point:

• Excellent XML integration (including XML Schema)
• Provide commonly-requested features in a declarative way, including calculation and validation
• Device independent, yet still useful on desktop browsers
• Strong separation of purpose from presentation
• Universal accessibility

This updated article gives an introduction to XForms, based on the 21 August 2002 Working Draft, which is described as being a close precursor to a Candidate Recommendation draft.

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