Virtually all Internet systems acquire data from users. Unfortunately, HTML and HTTP provide poor support for Internet based data entry. Data entry requires data validatation, separatation of the data model from presentation, dynamic form construction and other functionality that is not available with the standard protocols. Currently these problems are solved in an ad hoc manner on the server, requiring complex programming and multiple client-server rounds of interaction.

To address these needs, a W3C committee has defined a draft standard of XFORMS. This standard defines a mini-programming language targetted at the needs of data entry system developers and architects.

The E-XMLMedia XFE (XFORMS engine) product is an implementation of the XFORMS standard. XFE accepts an XFORMS document as input and returns validated XML to the server when data entry is finished by the user. XFE directly supports the variable bindings, data validation, XML Schema, XPath expressions and other constructs of the standard.

Implementations of Internet systems that use XFE have drastically reduced development times and reduced lines of code because the data entry problem is reduced to writing XFORMS documents. Thus XFE is a key product in the architecture of modern Internet systems.

This session will provide a provide a running example of the XFE product demonstrating an application based on XFORMS. This application includes the dynamic construction of tables for data entry and the "indirect" construction of a form where the result of one form determines the "form" of another form! This level of power and flexiblity is difficult to achieve with existing standards.

The session will also cover related issues of forms design, form deployment and system integration of form results with relational database management systems.

More information on XFE is available at http://www.e-xmlmedia.com/prod/xfe.htm