HomeThe Form Assembly is Open for Beta-Testing
There is still a lot to be done, but I feel that the project is ready to see some action.
The Form Assembly is a two part project: the wForms extension and the Form Builder.
The wForms Extension
wForms is a javascript extension that adds commonly needed behaviors to traditional web forms. It follows the principle of progressive enhancement : unobtrusive, cross-browser and degradable. I should also point out that not a single line of code is required to actually use it. That makes the learning curve almost non-existant. If you can add a class to a tag, then you can use wForms.
Implemented behaviors are:
- Switch: Allows you to show/hide relevant parts of a form based on the user inputs.
- Repeat: Allows parts of a form to be repeated if the user wants to provide more answers.
- Field Hint: Displays contextual help based on the current input focus.
- Input Validation: Validates common input types (email, numbers, ..) and displays appropriate error messages.
wForms is not as complete or ambitious as XForms or Web Forms 2.0 are, but at least it works with today’s browsers and is web standards compliant.
The Form Builder
The Form Builder is a tool for creating standard compliant web forms. It integrates the wForms extension and relies on a set of technologies like XML, XMLHttpRequest, XSLT and DOM (a.k.a Ajax) to provide a seamless single-screen experience.
Forms created with the builder are catalogued in the Form Library and are available for everybody else to reuse or adapt.
The Form Garden has not bloomed yet. It will hold a collection of CSS stylesheets suitable for web forms. Feel free to contribute.
April 4th, 2005 at 5:25 pm
What a really bloody good resource. Well done indeed, and thanks!
April 6th, 2005 at 4:46 am
This site is great, thanks!
April 6th, 2005 at 5:47 am
Very good idea. This will geatly shorten the impeading task of making forms, which I preform all too often. Hope that you have good luch with this project.
April 6th, 2005 at 10:23 am
Well done in developing this. The potential is huge and to have a one stop destination with such a focus is fantastic. All the best.
April 6th, 2005 at 10:47 pm
Fantastic Idea! I hate making forms lol. Something like this would be a huge bonus. When your righ from this you can shout us all a drink
April 7th, 2005 at 5:26 pm
a question: why are some form buttons flat and others 3d? what does this indicate?
April 7th, 2005 at 7:37 pm
curious: Good Question. It’s a way to separate primary and secondary actions. The visual weight is stronger on buttons that are more important.
But maybe the treatment flat/3d is not that clear after all.
(One of my source of inspiration: http://www.lukew.com/resources/articles/web_forms.html )
April 7th, 2005 at 9:12 pm
one issue i see . . . the form builder doesn’t render using safari 1.2.4 on mac os 10.3.8 - i get the message “These technologies are not fully supported by your browser. If possible, use the latest version of Mozilla/Firefox, Netscape or Internet Explorer.”
the site is a great idea. best of luck
April 7th, 2005 at 9:34 pm
mike: Yes. As the message indicates, The Form Builder doesn’t work with Safari (and Opera). Mainly because these browsers don’t have a XSLT engine. I am hopeful I will be able to put a workaround in place soon. In the meantime, you may use Netscape 7, Mozilla or Firefox on Mac.
On a side note, forms generated by the builder do work with Safari and Opera. If someone has tested the test form (http://www.formassembly.com/dev/form-view.php?formID=29) with a different Mac browser, I’d be happy to know the results.