Praise for XForms: XML Powered Web Forms

“XForms is an exciting new technology for designing Web forms in an elegant and accessible way. Raman’s book provides strong motivations for flexibility in the design of human-machine interactions, and explains how to use XForms to this end in crystal-clear prose.”

         —Eve Maler
             XML Standards Architect, Sun Microsystems

“Interactive forms technology is the logical evolution of Web user interface design. XForms represents a significant leap forward in that evolution.”

         —Sean McGrath
             CTO, Propylon

“The greatest strength of this book is the skill with which T. V. Raman links the XForms technology with the larger context of the Web. The limitations of HTML forms, the ways in which XForms provides a better foundation for Web and Web service user interfaces, and the opportunities for an XForms-powered Web that is accessible to all users and devices are outlined and brought together in a compelling way.”

         —Michael Champion
             Advisory Research and Development Specialist, Software AG

“Raman’s book gives the reader an excellent explanation of the emerging W3C XForms recommendation. It’s a well-organized and well-written book that begins with a gentle introduction to the concepts that motivated the development of XForms and then provides a reasonable overview of the relevant XML technology related to XForms. Most of the book covers XForms components: user interface controls, model properties, functions, actions, and events. It concludes with XForms as a Web service, offering multi-modal access and accessibility. In light of the October 2003 deadline for U.S. federal agencies to comply with the mandate of the Government Paperwork Elimination Act (GPEA) to give citizens the opportunity to provide information online, this important technical work comes none too soon. As T. V. masterfully elucidates, XForms provides the ‘last mile’ in ‘connecting users to their data.’ Insightfully, he also observes ‘the document is the human interface’ to data—an understanding without which the challenge to make eGov services ‘citizen-centered’ simply cannot and will not be met.”

         —Owen Ambur
             Cofounder and Cochair, XML Working Group, U.S. CIO Council

“I found the author’s straightforward style quite comfortable and informative. I heartily recommend this book, especially for government XML developers interested in the broader area of E-Forms. Understanding XForms is key to developing robust and flexible E-Forms solutions that separate content, logic, validation, and presentation. You’ll never look at (X)HTML forms the same way after reading Raman’s book.”

         —Kenneth Sall
             GSA eGov Technical Architect/XML Specialist, SiloSmashers

“Reusable components such as E-Forms are at the heart of the U.S. Federal Enterprise Architecture and E-Government, and XML standards-based solutions are starting to appear for use across the government. T. V. Raman’s book meticulously explains how XForms leverage the power of using XML for E-Forms and have been designed to abstract much of XML’s functionality into a set of components referred to as MVC (Model, View, Controller), which separates the model from its final presentation. This XForms component architecture serves as an excellent roadmap for the reader. T. V. eloquently shows how XForms make the original promise of ‘the document is the interface’ a reality so the collected data can be directly submitted to a Web service—thus putting a human face on Web services!”

—Brand Niemann, Ph.D., Chair, XML Web Services Working Group, U.S. CIO Council

XForms—XML-powered Web forms—are set to replace HTML forms as the backbone of electronic commerce. XForms enable the creation and editing of structured XML content within a familiar Web browser environment, which is likely to play a key role in enabling simple browser-based access to Web services. XForms leverage the power of XML in modeling, collecting, and serializing user input. In this book, World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) XForms specification editor T. V. Raman explains how programmers can create durable and dependable feature-rich forms accessible from multiple platforms and devices and available in multiple languages and modes.

XForms play a key role in connecting humans to information technologies, deployed as Web services. This book begins by providing an overview of the XForms technology and the set of XML standards on which it is built, including XML Path Language (XPath), Dom2 events, XML events, XML namespaces, and XML Schema. Part II profiles the XForms architecture and its components. An introduction to the available user interface controls leads into a guide to creating complex user interfaces. The following chapters describe XForms model properties, functions, actions, and events. Each chapter’s increasingly complex examples illustrate the concepts discussed. The final part of the book details how XForms will be used to create a new generation of human-centric, multimodal, accessible Web transactions.

Readers will learn:

• Why XForms can deliver better user interaction at less cost

• How the XForms technology works

• What comprises the XForms architecture

• How to use XForms to connect users to Web services

• How XForms can accommodate spoken and visual interaction

• How to ensure universal accessibility to Web content with XForms

XForms will transform the way companies and consumers handle Web transactions. XForms: XML Powered Web Forms provides Web developers, IT professionals, and Web server administrators with a firm grasp of this standard, how it will shape emerging solutions, and how it will change the nature of their day-to-day work.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 11 Ratings

Good blend of conceptual and reference material... - 2005-11-13
Reviewer Rating:
XForms is one of those technologies that hasn't yet taken off, but could make a substantial impact if it ever does. I got a copy of XForms - XML Powered Web Forms by T. V. Raman in order to understand a bit more about the subject...

Contents:
Part 1 - Welcome to XForms: XML Powered Web Forms; Standard Building Blocks
Part 2 - XForms Components: XForms User Interface Controls; Creating Complex User Interfaces; XForms Model Properties; XForms Functions; XForms Actions; XForms Events
Part 3 - XForms and the Next Generation Web: Connecting the User to Web Services; Multimodal Access; XForms and Accessibility; Colophon; Bibliography; Index

In some ways, XForms is harder than just regular HTML forms in that there's more data architecture that needs to be considered beforehand. Conversely, you are able to achieve a much better separation of data and design than possible under the HTML model. Raman does a pretty good job in explaining the overall conceptual model of XForms, as well as how it hooks into all the other "X" technologies (XPath, XML Schemas, etc.). Once the groundwork is set in Part 1, Part 2 becomes the reference manual on how to use each XForm feature. It's not a huge reference manual, but the core information is laid out in such a way that you'd end up using it on a regular basis as you get up to speed. I found it all pretty easy to follow, and I see how this could become a fundamental part of your personal library if you're using XForms on a regular basis. Of course, the downside is that XForms isn't yet supported on any widely-available basis... :)

If I were asked to recommend a title for XForms information, this would probably be the one I'd point someone to...

This is not a cookbook - 2009-04-07
Reviewer Rating:
If you are looking for the reasoning behind why XForms is built the way it is this book may be helpful.

If you are looking for code examples, hints, lessons, or pointers toward how to build an XForms application you should probably look somewhere else.

Excellent Introduction to XForms - 2006-07-27
Reviewer Rating:
This book in an excellent review of the XForms standard. It is part tutorial and part reference book. It starts with about 50 pages of background material (XPath, XML Schema, XML, namespaces etc) and then starts with a conceptual overview with some examples. It then takes us through all the major XForms concepts and elements.

The book is well written in a compact and precise style. It also has several tables that I found to be handy as references although there is no full appendix listing all the XForms elements which would have been very useful. It does have some useful additional information such as how to use CSS with XForms.

T.V. Raman is also a very credible expert on XForms since he was on the w3c XForms standards body. He gives several insights into why the standard is structured to be device independent. This allows XForms to run on web pages and mobile phone applications.

The only reason I did not give this a 5 star is that the examples on the online on the web site have many problems. The book was written using LATEX and many of the examples on-line still have many LATEX codes in them and will not run without much editing. Somewhat sloppy.

My hope is that the author fixes these problems in the future so that all the examples would work with the FireFox XForms plug-in. That would be ideal for using this book in the XForms classes I teach. The book could also have used a bit more editing, I found several grammatical errors but no real conceptual errors.

Wonderful book to learn XForms - 2004-07-01
Reviewer Rating:
Easy reading and a good explanation of XForms concepts. The book is about 230 pages with a CD. The XForms concepts are very well compressed into these pages, making it easy reading, yet less intimidating. I was able to read most of the book in the car when we went on a trip to Maine.

Clear and structured thinking makes complex thing simple - 2004-06-08
Reviewer Rating:

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