Introduction
form4j is a java package to provide easy interactive GUI forms.
Two reasons led to the implementation of this package:
- Most projects with java clients need some type of interactive data entry
- XML has become enough widespread to base such a form package entirely on it.
The always occuring functionalities for data entry should be covered by a single
package - free from business logic, but easily embeddable into a wide variety of
data entry and manipulation tasks.
Basic Features
-
Data interchange based completely on XML.
form4j eats any data in XML format.
-
Form definitions also in XML.
-
XPath expressions are used to give full flexibility to reference any data from specific
form fields.
-
The form layout is based on TableLayout to give enough flexibility without
too many layouting attributes.
-
A DOMModel ensures full MVC (Model-View-Controller) functionality among different form fields pointing to the
same underlying data.
-
Conditional form elements: Any fields or form areas may be bound to XPath expressions on the data, to control
Visibility and Editability.
-
Inherited attributes: To avoid stupid repetition of field attributes within the form definition, many attributes are
inheritable from ancestor elements.