Hi, Michael.

I'm just making the switch to XForms myself. I highly recommend the
O'Reilly book _XForms Essentials: Gathering and Managing XML
Information_ by Micah Dubinko. It's an excellent introduction, and a
useful reference even after you're up and running. I don't know how
much you know about xforms already, but you will also need an xforms
engine that can render your forms into some kind of human readable
form (either html/javascript, or a GUI). At UVa, we are using chiba,
which is a servlet that can run within tomcat, and also chicoon,
which is an integration of chiba and cocoon. The chiba website,
examples, and documentation are another excellent source of information.

A word of caution, though: Are you sure XForms is really what you
need? I was taken aback at how much more complicated XForms are than
good old HTML forms. If your HTML form is doing the job, maybe all
you really want to do is clean it up into XHTML for consistency's
sake? I adore XForms because they allow me to create complex forms
and workflows on the web, and port the user input straight into valid
XML, which gives me a lot of interoperability. But if all you want to
do is re-create functionality that you currently have with an HTML
form, the switch might not be worth the effort.

Unless you just want to tinker. That's always fun.

Good luck!

Bess Sadler

Elizabeth (Bess) Sadler
Metadata Specialist for User Projects

Digital Research and Instructional Services (DRIS)
Box 400129
Alderman Library
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, VA 22904

[log in to unmask]
(434) 243-2305


On Feb 13, 2006, at 1:46 PM, Michael N Matis wrote:


> Hello,
>
> Does anyone on the list have any experience using XForms?
>
> http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/Forms/
>
> I have a page, marked up in HTML that we use to register students
> to our
> workshops. I would like to create an XML version of the page.
>
> Thanks.
>
> Michael
> *****
> Michael Matis
> Dewey Graduate Library
> University at Albany
> 135 Western Avenue
> Albany, NY 12222
> (518) 442-3692
> [log in to unmask]
>