XML Forms

XForms is a major revision of HTML Forms designed to be a next generation of web forms. The design includes ease of migration, improved interoperability and accessibility, enhanced client/server interaction, advanced forms logic, support for internationalization and greater flexibility in presentation. It is important to note that the working group has decided that the goals for the next generation of forms are incompatible with preserving full backwards compatibility with browsers designed for earlier versions of HTML.  Because Web forms are being used as a mechanism for bi-directional data dialogue over the Web, XForms will cleanly distinguish between form data, logic and presentation. XForms is being designed for integration with XHTML and other XML tag sets.

XForms is being designed for today's business environment where existing HTML forms capabilities are clearly lacking.   HTML is capable of putting five or six fields in a form, but it cannot handle more complex business documents such as purchase orders.

 The specification for XForms separates the user interface from the data and logic, enabling different presentations to be used with the same back-end. In doing so, the same form can be filled out via a PC, a handheld, or a cellular phone and then can exchange data into the same back-end system.  Another goal of XForms is to enable passing data between Web pages.

XForms is made up of three specifications: the data model, the user interface, and protocols. The W3C published a draft for the Data Model in April 2000. A Working Draft for XForms was posted by W3C on August 28, 2001.