I've been testing out InfoPath. I is fairly easy to get started, In typical microsoft fashion they try to make the path of entry fairly easy. Also in typical MS fashion it looks really nice and only works in Windows. The one thing it is really lacking when compared with Lotus Notes or other form applications is a security model. This is really a huge gap, ok for a simple workgroup form but really no good for complex enterprise forms.
They say it supports and impressive set of technologies: XML 1.0, Namespaces, DOM 1.0, XML DSIG, Parts of XSD 1.0, XSLT 1.0, XHTML 1.0, UDDI 1.0, WSDL 1.1 and SOAP 1.1.
I noticed from the MS website: "InfoPath supports W3C’s XSLT 1.0 instead of W3C’s XForms."
Maybe someone should tell them that XSLT is not a replacement for xForms - in fact the technologies don't really compete. Extensible Stylesheet Language for Transformations (XSLT) is a language specifically designed to take XML of one form or structure and convert it into XML of another form or structure. XSLT deals with all kinds of information and doesn't really try to draw any meaning from it; it simply converts the source into the target. XForms, on the other hand, provides an easy way to take information that starts out not as XML, but as data in a user's head. Think of it as HTML forms on steroids. It has a specific vocabulary, meant to be interpreted by an XForms client such as a browser. The client acts on the XForms elements directly, using them to render in some way form entry fields such as text boxes and pulldown menus.
Posted by Anthony at March 10, 2005 01:02 PM