Doug Tidwell Strategist, IBM Software Group dtidwellus'ibm'com

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Doug TidwellStrategist, IBM Software
Groupdtidwell_at_us.ibm.com
How I learned to stop worrying and love the data
model
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Objectives

• Introduce XForms, an open standard for business
  forms
• Illustrate how to generate applications and data
  models from business process models
• Show how everything can be generated from the
  business process model

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XForms

• The next generation of forms on the Web

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XForms

• A W3C effort to bring HTML forms into the 20th
  century
• Forms should be integrated with data models
• One form should be renderable on many types of
  devices
• Use a declarative model as much as possible

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HTML forms - weaknesses

• Based solely on appearance
• Reliance on scripting
• Non-Western character support is spotty
• Cross-device forms are very difficult to write
• No real data model

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Advantages of XForms

• XForms has an underlying data model that can be
  generated from your existing business objects.
• XForms has an underlying data model that can be
  generated from your existing business objects.
• XForms has an underlying data model that can be
  generated from your existing business objects.

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Advantages of XForms

• Choose a winner
• ltxfselect1 ref"/bracket/results/result1/_at_winne
  rSeed"gt ltxflabelgtRound 1, Matchup
  1lt/xflabelgt ltxfitemgt ltxflabelgt
  ltxfoutput value"/bracket/"/gt lt/xflabelgt
  ltxfvaluegt1lt/xfvaluegt lt/xfitemgt
  ltxfitemgt ltxflabelgt ltxfoutput
  value"/bracket/"/gt. . .

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Advantages of XForms

• With XForms, were specifying what the data is.
• The XPath expression says were choosing a value
  for the winnerSeed attribute on the first
  ltresultgt element in the ltresultsgt element in the
  ltbracketgt element.
• The label for the selection and the labels for
  each item are extracted from the XML document.

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Advantages of XForms

• We dont say how the data is displayed.
• We can define rules elsewhere to say how this is
  rendered based on the number of choices, type of
  device, whatever.

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A brief tour of XForms

• Well look at the different kinds of controls you
  can use.
• Well focus on the dynamic nature of XForms, and
  show how to use plug-ins and Ajax to run the
  forms on the client.

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A wee demo
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Free XForms tools

• alphaWorks Visual XForms Designer
• An Eclipse-based tool for building XForms

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Free XForms tools

• alphaWorks XForms Generator
• Converts XML documents and schemas to XForms

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Building and deploying XForms
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Building and deploying

• One of the challenges of deploying XForms is
  getting XForms support on the client.
• Well look at two approaches
• Requiring a browser plug-in
• Using Ajax controls

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Using a browser plug-in

• Typically useful in an intranet
• For Internet Explorer, theres MozzIE, written by
  Peter Nunnsourceforge.net/projects/mozzie
• Mozilla has an XForms plug-in its available at
  https//addons.mozilla.org/ en-US/firefox/addon/8
  24

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Using Ajax controls

• The Chiba project provides an open-source XForms
  engine.
• It uses XSLT to transform the XForms document
  into Ajax-enabled HTML pages and send them to the
  client.
• Chiba doesnt require any client-side plug-ins.

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Using Ajax controls

• Well look at the Orbeon Presentation Server, an
  open-source XForms engine.
• It uses the XForms definition to generate
  Ajax-enabled HTML pages and send them to the
  client.
• Orbeon doesnt require any client-side plug-ins.
• Its based on Chiba.

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XForms at the W3C

• XForms Version 1.1 is currently in Last Call at
  the W3C.
• IBMs John Boyer is the editor of the spec.
• IBMs Jan Kratky is behind the alphaWorks XForms
  tools. Hes also a member of the XForms working
  group.

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The importance of data models
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Data models

• Lost in all the excitement of Web 2.0 is the fact
  that our spiffy interfaces have to do something
  useful.
• You can build Web pages with JavaScript libraries
  to put a happy face on a business process
• Are these maintainable? Probably not.
• We want these pages to be tied to our data model.

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Our data models
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Code from data models

• We can generate Java beans and database schemas
  directly from our data model.
• Well take a quick look at the data model behind
  our application.

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A Web 2.0 UI
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The application
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The application
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What well generate

• An XForms data model, generated directly from our
  XML schema.
• We now have a modern front end to our application.

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Achtung!

• At a test run of this session, several people
  lost consciousness in the excitement of the demo.
• If you are prone to hyperventilation, motion
  sickness or Tourettes syndrome, we implore you
  to avert your eyes during this portion of the
  program.
• Unfortunately, we cannot be responsible for your
  medical expenses.

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Majestic demo
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A glimpse at the future

• The technologies developed by the Open Service
  Oriented Architecture group (osoa.org) make your
  SOA simpler and easier to manage
• Service Component Architecture (SCA) Gives you a
  single API for packaging, using and assembling
  components
• Service Data Objects (SDO) Gives you a single
  API for accessing data sources

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OSOA.org

• A group of 17 companies taking SOA
  interoperability to the next level

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A glimpse at the future

• If youre using these technologies, or would like
  to know more about them, please contact
  medtidwell_at_us.ibm.com

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Resources
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Resources

• IBM developerWorks
• ibm.com/developerworks/xml
• Steven Pembertons XForms presentation on the W3C
  site
• w3.org/2007/Talks/05-15-steven-xforms11/
• The XForms spec
• w3.org/TR/2007/WD-xforms11-20070222/ Last call
  draft

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Resources

• FormFaces
• formfaces.com
• Chiba
• See chiba.sourceforge.net
• Orbeon Presentation Server
• Available at orbeon.com, open-sourced under the
  GPL

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Resources

• MozzIE
• sourceforge.net/projects/mozzie
• Uses the Mozilla Gecko rendering engine
• Firefox XForms add-on
• Select Tools?Add-ons, then click Get Extensions,
  search for XForms
• https//addons.mozilla.org/ en-US/firefox/addon/8
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Resources

• Visual XForms Designer
• ibm.com/alphaworks/tech/vxd
• XML Forms Generator
• ibm.com/alphaworks/tech/xfg
• Open Service-Oriented Architecture group
• osoa.org

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Summary
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Summary

• Weve covered several important topics
• XForms, an open standard for forms
• Generating data models and applications from
  business process models
• Generating Rich Internet Applications from data
  models
• Keeping the back-end and the front-end of an
  application synchronized

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Doug TidwellStrategist, IBM Software
Groupdtidwell_at_us.ibm.com
Thanks!