Building a Backpack interface with XForms | skimstone
Someone has created a full XForms GUI for the Backpack project scheduling system.
Backpack is one of the better known commercial websites written in Ruby On Rails.
XForms is the new standard for doing online forms. Created in the late 1990s, it eventually became an official W3 Recommentation (basically, a standard all though they never call their standards such).
Today, XForms is also better known as the standard way of doing forms in the next version of XHTML. That is right, the new XHTML standard literally does away with any semblance of the original HTML forms/controls tags and simply uses XHTML. Smart!
With XForms, a web designer only has to create one page. Client devices will interpret the goals/controls of the web page from its description, and present the most attractive, usable user interface they can to the user. It is a much better division of labor and success of reuse than has ever existed before on the web.
Lately, the web has been fracturing into a lot of incompatible standards. While diversity of formats is good (sort of), minimization of labor costs and mistakes is a more common goal. Supporting as many different types of devices as possible is another common goals. XForms provides a shorter road to that than other technologies, without a lot of redundant coding/authoring/designing.
Who knows, you might one day be running this prototype from your cell phone - not just your desktop computer.
Building a Backpack interface with XForms | skimstone:
Backpack is one of the better known commercial websites written in Ruby On Rails.
XForms is the new standard for doing online forms. Created in the late 1990s, it eventually became an official W3 Recommentation (basically, a standard all though they never call their standards such).
Today, XForms is also better known as the standard way of doing forms in the next version of XHTML. That is right, the new XHTML standard literally does away with any semblance of the original HTML forms/controls tags and simply uses XHTML. Smart!
With XForms, a web designer only has to create one page. Client devices will interpret the goals/controls of the web page from its description, and present the most attractive, usable user interface they can to the user. It is a much better division of labor and success of reuse than has ever existed before on the web.
Lately, the web has been fracturing into a lot of incompatible standards. While diversity of formats is good (sort of), minimization of labor costs and mistakes is a more common goal. Supporting as many different types of devices as possible is another common goals. XForms provides a shorter road to that than other technologies, without a lot of redundant coding/authoring/designing.
Who knows, you might one day be running this prototype from your cell phone - not just your desktop computer.
Building a Backpack interface with XForms | skimstone:
We're getting ready for a new version of Sidewinder and in the process we're building a few desktop applications to show what you can do with the new features. One of these applications makes use of Backpack to store tasks and reminders, and during the course of developing it, Phil decided to set up a simple XForm that can access every feature of Backpack. It's such a handy little form that we thought we'd share it with you--if you're planning to build an XForms application that uses Backpack you'll definitely want to take a look
posted by John Collins | 4:40 PM
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