Novell XForms Explorer

From Developer Community

1 Introduction - about W3C XForms
2 XForms in Novell exteNd
3 Using XForms - browser support
4 Other XForms implementations
5 Additional resources
6 File Releases
7 Release Notes

Introduction - about W3C XForms

XForms is a W3C standard for displaying and manipulating forms-oriented data on web pages.

XForms improve on HTML Forms by separating data, logic, and presentation into three distinct areas. This clean separation makes it easier for developers to customize the interface for users and devices, without rewriting the form or its associated logic. XForms also includes a powerful event model that allows the user to easily bind a form control to a piece of client-side logic without extensive scripting.

The XForms standard has garnered considerable interest in the IT industry due to the inherent benefits to both application developers and users as witnessed by the W3C implementation list.

For more information on XForms, please see XForms Resources below.

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XForms in Novell exteNd

Novell is a leading developer of XForms processors. The Novell exteNd suite leverages the XForms standard to increase developer productivity with visual tools to bind pages to Web Services, relational databases, and other data sources. Developers are able to easily assemble applications with pre-built custom controls or exteNd their applications by creating their own. Developers can create a complete user experience with the Page Flow Engine to define application flow and logic. Novell exteNd includes an easy to use, XForms-based visual development environment. Specific implementations include:

XForms Java Servlet in exteNd. A server side (servlet) processor that is part of the exteNd deployment platform. XForms based applications developed with the exteNd Designer are converted to HTML and JavaScript on the fly by the server and enable XForms to be portlets in exteNd Director. The first version was released in January 2004 and follows a pattern that since has been termed AJAX (for Asynchronous JavaScript & XML).
XForms processor for Java. This is a Java Swing Application and is used in the exteNd Director Designer for testing XForms created with the Designer.
A standalone WebStart version of the XForms processor is free and can be downloaded from:http://forgeftp.novell.com/xforms-explorer/java/home.html

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Using XForms - browser support

Since current Web browsers do not provide native XForms support, to view XForms optimally in your browser, you need a browser plug-in or extension.

Below is the status of the various browsers and XForms

Internet Explorer 6.0: An XForms Plug-In for Microsoft Internet Explorer (6.0) has been developed by Novell. This XForms processor enables exteNd Director to offload XForms processing to the client and the plug-in is also very useful for the general public wishing to develop and utilize XForms. The plug-in is free and can be downloaded at: Special:Downloads/xforms-explorer/docs/nxsetup.msi
Mozilla browsers (Firefox 1.0x and Mozilla 1.7): Novell is collaborating with Mozilla.org to implement XForms extensions in the Mozilla browsers. Beta downloads for these browsers are now available. For download instructions, release notes, and to learn more about the project, please visit the project page at http://www.mozilla.org/projects/xforms
Other browsers: no extensions or plugins available

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Other XForms implementations

Open Office 2.0: OpenOffice.org 2.0 now allows the user to create forms based on the open W3C XForms standard. Open Office can be downloaded from http://www.openoffice.org.

Open Office 2.0 lets you design XForms with a toolbar based drag and drop editor and the forms can be added directly into a standard Open Office text document or be exported to XHTML.

Future support is expected to provide the ability for Open Office forms to be exported directly for processing in Mozilla Firefox. Open Office may eventually support the import of a form written in exteNd Director into Open Office while still utilizing the exteNd pageflow facility for processing on the server.

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