The Ubiquity XForms processor allows developers to use XForms markup to create interactive web applications. Ubiquity XForms adds new APIs to a number of popular Ajax libraries, making XForms processing available in standard browsers, without the need for a download.

The Ubiquity XForms project was jointly initiated by IBM(R) Corporation and webBackplane. The initial code for the project was developed by Mark Birbeck and Paul Butcher.

Goals

The library was initially developed to work with the Yahoo! User Interface (YUI) Library, an open source Ajax library. Other libraries such as Dojo and Scriptaculous will also be supported as the code moves forward, allowing authors to use XForms with their favourite Ajax library.

Benefits

XForms is a powerful language for building rich user interfaces that are independent of any particular platform. Using XForms allows developers to quickly create useful applications that are easy to maintain. And by making the Ubiquity XForms processor available on a number of different Ajax libraries, authors can use XForms to protect their coding investment by creating Ajax applications that are independent of any particular Ajax library.

Getting involved

If you're planning to use Ubiquity XForms in a web-based application, then you'll want to join the Ubiquity XForms Developer Group. This is a useful place to ask questions, keep up-to-date on releases, and make suggestions for future versions.

The Ubiquity XForms Contributor Group is for those contributing to the Ubiquity XForms core code. As detailed in the Instructions for Code Contribution, a contributor must first submit a license agreement to the contributor group. After that, a contributor may provide contributions via diff patches or request SVN commit access.