Xform vs. Jsf in Java ee Web Application

Question

We are developing an Enterprise Web Application by (javaEE6 framework ) We need a form builder , which the end user can design a form and run it in run time. We have suggested to use XForm format as our form Builder output and Input instead of JSF. so we will need a plugin or engine to parse the Generated XForm to make the form in browser.

is XForm featured as JSF is? I mean -Ajax -Styling -JQuery

And

Does Xform Has an Integration Capability with Java Beans?

Answer 1

XForms is not a library, nor a framework. It is a W3C Standard, see http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/Forms/. They do keep a list of all known implementations, see http://www.w3.org/community/xformsusers/wiki/XForms_Implementations.

It depends on the implementation how well it would integrate in the J2EE architecture. I'm lightly familiar with a few. To my knowledge OrbeonForms, and BetterForms are frameworks of their own, and convert XForms pages into dynamic HTML. They integrate well on top of REST apis. XSLTForms does more or less the same, but runs entirely client-side.

Styling can be applied on top of XForms using CSS. JavaScript, and JQuery can sometimes be using in combination, to enhance functionality provided by the implementation, but that really depends on how the implementation works. Not sure how relevant AJAX is, since the idea of XForms is actually to keep a data-model on client-side, and send that across once done.

Someone better known to XForms implementations might be able to elaborate more thoroughly. In mean time take a look at the list of implementations yourself. It is certainly worth taking a look at them..

HTH!