When we conceived the idea for Intalio seven years ago, one functionality was at the top of our priority list: the ability to design web-based forms without having to write code. As simple as this sounds, it tooks us quite a bit of time to figure it out. Back then, JavaScript did not really work, making something like AJAX practically impossible. The first XForms draft had just been released by the W3C, but it was so primitive that nothing useful could be done with it. As a result, we had to develop our own language — we called it XPage at the time — and come up with our own implementation of AJAX, circa 2002. It was a noble pursuit, but it did not really work.

Four years later, things have evolved quite a bit. XForms 1.0 is mature enough to be used in a production environment, and web browsers are solid enough to support JavaScript in a consistent manner, making AJAX a reality. A couple of months ago, we announced our partnership with Orbeon, which gave us a working implementation of XForms built on AJAX and J2EE. One piece was missing though: a tool that would allow a process analyst to develop a working form, without having to write code.

This week, Intalio finally delivered a first version of a WYSIWYG XForms designer. It is implemented as an Eclipse feature, generates XForms code that is directly deployed onto the Orbeon Presentation Server in a one-click deploy fashion, supports roundtripping of XForms code, and makes use of CSS for layout, presentation and styling. Here is a screenshot for the designer running in Eclipse, and one for the generated form running within a JSR 168 portal. Congratulations to Jacques-Alexandre and his team for an amazing piece of work, and many thanks to the good Orbeon folks, Alessandro and Erik. Last but not least, many thanks to Hugues, whose early work on XPage gave us the experience we needed to come up with a working solution. Having seen this first version working without a glitch, all I can say is that it was definitely worth the efforts. If you want to give it a try yourself, just join our Early Access Program.