HTML Forms - the Next Generation

By Dr Chris P. Jobling

April 19, 2007

In which [Dave Raggett](http://www.w3.org/people/raggett) presents the state-of-the-art in Web Forms: that is HTML Forms versus the richer XML standard XForms. Most folks these days have to resort to clever, complex, JavaScript to achieve sophisticated UI effects in the current crop of HTML standards (with all the issues around cross-browser compatibilty that that implies). Dave is proposing a *transitional approach* based on HTML plus portable JavaScript that can provide XForms-like behaviour (declarative validation, rich data types, forms logic) in the current crop of browsers. As an example see and try out [this slide](http://www.w3.org/2007/03/html-forms/#(11)) (and others that follow it) in the presentation. He also has things to say about spreadsheets, particularly on-line spreadsheets. Dave’s actual presentation of this at Google HQ was videoed and is available as a [Google TechTalk](http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-6347740793556865808). Incidently, in more *stumbled-upon* goodness, the presentation is coded in another [S5-like](http://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/s5/) HTML format called [*HTML Slidy*](http://www.w3.org/Talks/Tools/Slidy) which is also worth a look.

Uncategorised