Forget about AJAX programming and XMLHttpRequest Javascript object, in fact – forget about Javascript completely. Forget about any executable code in the browser for virtually any commonplace operation.

Yet still get those effects you want – like client-side data validation, dynamic addition/removal of content panels on a page (like subforms for items on an order, say) and do it all smoothly without pausing.

• Keep your pages looking sharp with the CSS you and your web designers know and love.
• Support users who turn off Javascript in their browsers to avoid risks and annoying Flash popups.
• Don’t sweat users using browsers from different venders that use different DOMs and Javascript object models.

Enjoy rich controls like sliders, calendar-looking date-pickers, and so on – without the use of any:

1. Javascript
2. Flash pages or Flash components embedded on on web pages
3. dynamic server-based images
4. client image maps
5. Java applets operating as components

Impossible you say?

No, not really.

In the latter half of the 1990s a group of developers proposed a new document standard for handling forms to the W3. It was based on XML.

As such, XForms was perfectly suited to work with the new world of XHTML which has been steadily, stealthily replacing the older HTML standard since the end of the 1990s.

Today, XHTML is in full bloom. It is supported by all browsers, all web authoring tools, and most content management systems and templating languages not only support it but embrace it.

So, if you do not want to learn one more thing, perhaps this book is not for you. But if you want to learn and worry over 5 things less when you create your web pages, dude – maybe this book is for you.

Firefox 1.5 has had a preliminary partial implementation available for it since the latter half of 2005. It is a separately downloadable Firefox extension. IBM and some other big companies worked on it. Last time I checked, it was coming along pretty well and going forward pretty fast.

I don’t have anything against this cacaphony of different technologies.

But without XForms it takes 5 different, somewhat conflicted, constantly independently morphing standards – controlled by groups with differing agendas – to make really good dynamic web sites. With XForms, it only takes one.

XForms is the forms module for XHTML 2.0. That is to say, the FORMS tag and its subordinate INPUT tags that have been a staple of web site programming since the early 1990s – more than a dozen years ago – are finally going away. Not this second but they are slated for execution. The governor is not going to grant clemency. They are on a death list.

However, XForms already exists. In addition to client-side extensions for Firefox and IE browsers, there are also server side XForms engines that translate an XForms page on a server – and convert it on the fly to traditional DHTML:

1. HTML/XHTML
2. CSS
3. Javascript
4. images/icons

So even legacy browsers that haven’t – or never will – get upgraded are used to access an application with an XForms UI, they still get to play along with more advanced, up to date web browsers.

Note that XForms is not a “mode”. XHTML is modular and XForms tags are typically used in an XHTML page. So, you can still use Javascript, embed Flash widgets, and so forth – if you feel you must. The salient thing is – you will not need to do that most of the time, if ever at all.