Verifying XML Signatures on Lotus Forms Documents
Wed, Jul 29th 2009 8:55p John Boyer Back in March, I wrote about the open standards basis of Lotus Forms documents. This entry included comments on the use of the XML Signatures standard in combination with XForms within the XFDL markup of Lotus Forms.
Now I'd like to draw your attention to a developerWorks article we've now published on the technical details of Verifying Lotus Forms XML Signatures with Java. This article explains how a JSR 105 compliant implementation, such as can be found in the Apache security library or in Ja [read] Keywords: designer
document
forms
ibm
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workflow
java
security
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XForms, XFDL and Lotus Domino
Mon, Jun 22nd 2009 1:56p John Boyer Just ran across a good developerWorks article on Integrating Lotus Forms with Lotus Domino.
Domino is a web application and web services platform that is often used in combination with the Lotus Notes rich client platform. However, as this article shows, it is possible for Domino to have broader reach out to all web browsers without a large client-side installation. The intelligence and interactivity of XForms are combined with the high precision presentation layer of XFDL to describe a rich c [read] Keywords: composite
domino
forms
ibm
lotus
mashup
mashups
notes
notes client
ajax
application
applications
enterprise
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15
Consuming DB2 Web Services with Lotus Forms
Fri, Jun 12th 2009 4:56p John Boyer Check out this developerWorks article for a step-by-step guide to deploying a DB2 web service and then consuming that web service using the Lotus Forms Designer.
Once the WSDL for a particular DB2 web service is pulled into your Lotus Forms Designer, you select and autogenerate a data instance and a specific service, drag-and-drop the data instance onto the design canvas to autocreate the user interface, and then generate the run-time XForms submission for the service. The article above shows e [read] Keywords: designer
forms
ibm
lotus
database
db2
interface
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10
The Way Forward for HTML5
Fri, Jun 5th 2009 2:49a John Boyer Despite all the excitement about the possibilities that HTML5 offers for a better world wide web,
I believe there is a critical flaw in the go-forward plan of those who are feeling the momentum.
The problem is that they still haven't got ~80% of the web browser makers on board!
By which I mean they haven't got you-know-who.
There's really only one way to break the loggerjam and move forward with advancing the
state of the web. We need to get you-know-who out of the way of progress by showing
t [read] Keywords: ibm
application
google
server
10
Angels and Demons... and XForms
Fri, May 29th 2009 8:51p John Boyer So, I went to the movies recently and saw the new Dan Brown flick Angels and Demons. Probably not much of a spoiler to mention that the plot suspense is derived from the need to defuse an antimatter bomb placed somewhere in Vatican city, and everybody's favorite symbologist is called in to decipher the clues that may help lead to its location.
And they only have until midnight to find it. And the baddies are going to kill a Cardinal every hour before the big bang just to prove how serious they [read] Keywords: ibm
javascript
application
4
It's a happy birthday...
Mon, Apr 27th 2009 1:48p John Boyer Happy birthday to me!
Here's to XForms ubiquity;
In FireFox and IE.
Happy birthday to me!
But seriously folks, IBM is a proud sponsor and contributor to the Ubiquity XForms open source project, and the Lotus Forms team has exciting plans for capitalizing on the ability to have XForms support directly within a web page.
Gone is the distorting lens of limitations imposed by the fraction of language features that the dominating browser makers are prepared to support today. The Ubiquity movemen [read] Keywords: forms
ibm
lotus
firefox
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13
The open standards basis of XFDL and the value of Lotus Forms documents
Thu, Mar 26th 2009 6:51p John Boyer A Lotus Form is a document currently expressed in an XML vocabulary called XFDL (html version, pdf version).
This is significant enough, in and of itself, to be set off in a paragraph. XML is a de facto industry standard from the W3C, and this means that widely deployed, interoperable, industry standard software toolkits can be used to introspect and manipulate the content of XFDL, i.e. Lotus Forms documents, thus mitigating issues of vendor lock-in.
But the story gets better...
The XFDL form [read] Keywords: designer
document
forms
ibm
lotus
application
java
security
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2
The spectrum: From Enterprise to Line-of-Business Applications with Lotus Forms and XForms
Fri, Feb 20th 2009 8:51p John Boyer Well, my frieds, it seems a good time to draw your attention to a collection of available resources that can help you understand how you and your customers can address a full spectrum computing requirements, from the enterprise information application all the way down to the simple design-deploy-collect-analyze pattern for situational applications that arise throughout the enterprise
First of all, check out the Lotus Forms Enablement videos on YouTube. There are videos that show Lotus Forms in [read] Keywords: forms
ibm
lotus
application
applications
email
enterprise
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Lotusphere
Thu, Jan 15th 2009 8:51p John Boyer I'm about to start packing my bags to head out for Lotusphere 2009.
Sunday is Business Development Day (BDD), and I'll be presenting at the Futurists Panel on
Dual Forms: An open standard office document mashup for document-centric business processes,
and the broader context of Interactive Documents as Web 2.0 Applications.
I'm very pleased to be part of such an exciting panel, which also includes Mary Beth Raven (of Notes fame, speaking on task management) and
Mathew Flaherty (from the Lot [read] Keywords: document
forms
ibm
lotus
lotusphere
mashup
notes
application
applications
db2
development
networking
office
web 2.0
websphere
websphere portal
xml
5
Separating Form from Function
Mon, Dec 22nd 2008 11:51a John Boyer The W3C Forms Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of XForms for HTML.
XForms for HTML provides a set of attributes and script methods that can be used by the tags or elements of an HTML or XHTML web page to simplify the integration of data-intensive interactive processing capabilities from XForms. The semantics of the attributes are mapped to the rich XForms model-view-controller-connector architecture, thereby allowing web application authors a smoother, selective migrat [read] Keywords: forms
ibm
application
google
integration
xml
Going Beyond Office with Interactive Office Documents
Tue, Oct 28th 2008 5:51p John Boyer For over 15 years now, the solutions built with the software products from
the IBM Lotus Forms team have been based on a simplifying system architecture
depicted below. This architecture uses a sophisticated, intelligent XML document
as the unit of information that flows among collaborators in a business process.
To support such high-value intelligent interaction, the document has a number
of layers as depicted below. These layers have different responsibilities.
Foundationally, the docum [read] Keywords: document
forms
ibm
lotus
odf
application
applications
interface
office
security
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7
Document Engineering Smorgasbord
Mon, Oct 6th 2008 7:51p John Boyer My last blog was about the best paper winner at the ACM Symposium on Document Engineering, and I mentioned there that I'd make another post to give you an idea of the breadth and depth of the papers presented. So, the bad news is you'll have to wait one more post for me to tell you about my own papers because I want to keep the focus on other people's ideas, and so the good news is that this is that follow-on post.
I can't tell you about every paper, nor even get close, and omissions here shoul [read] Keywords: document
ibm
mashup
applications
google
office
web 2.0
xml
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On the Best Paper at the ACM Symposium on Document Engineering
Sat, Sep 20th 2008 8:48a John Boyer I'm just leaving Sao Paulo after attending the ACM Symposium on Document Engineering. Great conference (people and technical content). I'd like to say more about a number of the other papers, but I'll focus here on the one that won this year's Best Paper Award: Enabling Adaptive Time-based Web Applications with SMIL State by Jack Jansen and Dick Bulterman.
The paper presents a very interesting mix of SMIL, XForms and other technologies to enable end-users to customize their experience of conte [read] Keywords: document
ibm
applications
css
web 2.0
XML Data Interaction for All via XForms Modularization
Wed, Jun 18th 2008 9:25p John Boyer The XForms team finished our face-to-face meeting in Amsterdam last week. A major focus of the work on XForms 1.2 is called modularization.
The rationale for this work is the observation that the set of XML data processing problems which may have first arisen in the electronic form space are really more generally applicable to the XML data processing needs of RIAs and web applications. On the other hand, those who hear the word "form" may think they do not have a form problem because they stil [read] Keywords: forms
ibm
application
applications
interface
wiki
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End-to-End Solutions with Lotus Forms and DB2 pureXML
Thu, Mar 27th 2008 7:33p John Boyer I'd like to elaborate further, and in concrete terms, a blog post from late last year on Talking to C-Level Execs about XForms. This will also make more sense of the XForms is a killer app of Web 2.0 messaging you got from me in this post.
For a long time now, web applications have had to use middle tier coding to backfill for the underpowered client tier and its inability to talk directly to server tier applications like DB2 that provide the persistent storage for the web. The Web 2.0 movement [read] Keywords: forms
, ibm
, lotus
, applications
, database
, db2
, server
, web 2.0
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Lose the Paper. Free your Forms. Powered by XForms.
Fri, Feb 29th 2008 8:09p John Boyer Check out this cool video that will help you understand how and why your business processes need to lose the paper and get on board with dynamic, interactive electronic forms... powered by the XForms standard of course! [read] Keywords: forms
3
Like XForms, my new GPS device "rules"... because it's declarative!
Fri, Feb 15th 2008 5:36p John Boyer My wife got me one of those GPS devices for Christmas. I really like it. Actually, I work closely with Steven Pemberton on the W3C Forms Working Group, and every face to face meeting we manage not to get lost because Steven has one of these devices. His talks a bit much and sounds just a little pouty when you don't follow her directions properly, though I think that's just a skin.
Perhaps needless to say, I've wanted one of my own for some time now because I'm pretty good at getting lost. I onc [read] Keywords: forms
, google
Declarative vs. Imperative
Tue, Jan 15th 2008 4:51p John Boyer When I read the material on Yahoo! Blueprint, I was pretty pleased and shared the links with you in the last entry. However, I'd like to draw your attention to the first paragraph of their roadmap (emphasis is mine):
Declarative vs. Imperative
Much of Blueprint's philosophy and syntax comes from XForms. We opted for
a full declarative language because it was the only way we could
effectively run on the wide range of devices out there, some of which have
no scripting at all. By using declara [read] Keywords: formula
, application
, enterprise
, interface
3
XForms starts 2008 with a Bang!
Thu, Jan 10th 2008 5:47p John Boyer After the Candidate Recommendation announcement for XForms 1.1 at the end of last year, the public implementation report period now begins in earnest. To celebrate the candidate recommendation, today you can now access a 25-minute podcast (MP3) I made to explain to you What's new in XForms 1.1 and why you should care.
And now for a very interesting news item. You know how good it feels to see a prediction you made come true? Well, that's me right now, and oh is it sweet. For some time now, I've [read] Keywords: google
, mobile
, podcast
, server
, web 2.0
, xml
XForms 1.0 Third Edition is now W3C approved
Wed, Oct 31st 2007 12:50a John Boyer The World Wide Web Consortium, or W3C, produces the "standards" for all sorts of web technologies with which we are all familiar, including XML, XSLT, XML Schema, HTML, CSS, PNG, ..., and XForms. The W3C calls these things "Recommendations" because after due process and careful review and implementation, the World Wide Web Consortium recommends the technical specification for world-wide development and deployment. And this is what has happened to all the recommendations listed above.
But just a [read] Keywords: forms
, ibm
, community
, css
, development
, enterprise
, xml
, xslt
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Talking to C-Level Executives about XForms
Thu, Oct 18th 2007 11:57a John Boyer A lot of talks about XForms are a bit technical in nature because the people who manufacture XForms processors tend to be technical people who understand the business value of XForms in terms like "model-view-controller" architectures, a superset of AJAX, and software engineering benefits like abstraction. But the C-level executive cares not about these things. It is important to connect them to what the C-level executive does care about.
The C-level exec is about efficiency, flexibility and a [read] Keywords: connect
, ibm
, workflow
, ajax
, application
, integration
, server
, soa
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ANN: XForms Evening at XML 2007
Fri, Oct 12th 2007 12:40p John Boyer I am pleased to announce that IDEAlliance has now announced the XForms Evening at the XML Conference.
This event brings together a number of the leaders in the XForms community to present the business value of XForms, including design experience, end-to-end solution development, case studies and driving business value through Web 2.0 integration. The session culminates in a keynote address by Elliotte Rusty Harold, who offers his vision and advice on the future of XForms.
You can find out the [read] Keywords: ibm
, community
, development
, integration
, web 2.0
, xml
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Lotus Forms 3.0 Now Available!
Tue, Sep 25th 2007 6:19p John Boyer Lotus Forms 3.0 is now available. Click here for details and trial downloads.
Perhaps the biggest news overall is the performance enhancements to Web Form Server, which is a "Rich Internet Application" platform that provides the capabilities of Lotus Forms directly to web browsers without the need to install "rich client" software.
We have also added digital signature capability to Web Form Server. This is, of course, one case where a small amount of native code must be deployed by the server [read] Keywords: designer
, forms
, ibm
, lotus
, application
, integration
, server
, soa
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XForms 1.1 Progress in Madrid
Thu, Sep 20th 2007 1:27p John Boyer Well, now that I can finally log in to the blog system again, it's time for an update on XForms 1.1.
The working group has been addressing the "last call" comments of the community since last call officially ended back at the end of April. Although we got a pretty healthy review during the March and April review period, it so happens that we have received an equal or slightly greater number of review comments after the official review period. The working group has been treating these comments w [read] Keywords: forms
, ibm
, application
, community
, database
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Point-and-click Visual XForms Design
Wed, Aug 15th 2007 3:40p John Boyer XForms is an important standard for encoding the core XML data processing asset of a forms application for multiple reasons.
For one, it fills the gap of schema languages, which are predominantly focused on describing what constitutes correct data that should drive server-side transactions. XForms codifies what it takes to get from an empty initial instance of a schema to a completed correct instance of a schema.
Another reason is that XForms provides an efficient language for doing the above [read] Keywords: forms
, ibm
, application
, server
, xml
Retaining the 'previous' value in XForms
Wed, Jul 11th 2007 7:03p John Boyer A question came past the other day about how to preserve the previous value of a form control before the one currently entered by the user. Immediately, the most famous story from Italian playwright Luigi Pirandello came to mind. Like six characters in search of an author, here we have a few XForms techniques in search of a blogger, and those techniques are getting their 5 minutes of fame now because the topic I intended to present has fallen victim to a limitation of the blogging system.
I'm s [read] Keywords: formula
, ibm
, blogger
, blogging
