FlashForward Keynote: "Royale" Sneak Peak

Posted by Dan on Mar 28, 2003 @ 11:56 AM
At the end of the FlashForward Keynote this morning, Kevin ran a video from one of the Macromedia engineers who is working on some new technology (code named Royale) that we are working on. He showed a Flash based input form with multiple sections. He then showed the code used to build it, which was written entirely in XML. Not only was the entire Flash application created from the XML file, but so was all of the databinding (SOAP Based), ActionScript and StyleSheets (yes, Cascading Style Sheets).
- Mike Chambers' Blog

I sure hope this is based on the XForms spec. It could go a long way to advancing the usage of XForms in the developer community. If this is a properitary XML format, I'll be pretty disappointed since the XForms spec is pretty complete and lays out just about everything you'd want to do with a Form. With all my work on qForms, I've learned one thing—the current HTML implementation of forms leaves a lot to be desired. I'm still not sure I'm sold on the performance of RIA in Flash, but performance does seem to be getting better.

Categories: qForms, Flex/Flash

3 Comments

  • P T Withington's Gravatar
    P T Withington
    If you are interested in seeing what Royale may do for you, someday, you might want to take a look at http://www.laszlosystems.com">Laszlo Systems, which lets you build XML-based internet apps with the power of a desktop app, today. [Full disclosure: I am a Laszlo employee.]
  • Dan G. Switzer, II's Gravatar
    Dan G. Switzer, II
    P.T.,

    I've been watching what you guys have been doing for awhile. I'm curious though, what are you doing in the way of implementing XForms? Are there plans to implement the spec into the product?

    I know I've blogged about your product before at:
    http://blog.pengoworks.com/blogger/index.cfm?actio...

    PS - I can't help it, but every time I see the name "Laszlo", it reminds me of the radio DJ in Grand Theft Auto 3. :)
  • P T Withington's Gravatar
    P T Withington
    Laszlo's XML is more focused on defining the presentation and interaction for a given set of data; XForms is not focused on specifying the actual interactive interface, more on the abstract model for forms. Laszlo's XML can be used today to create forms with client-side validation, data binding, etc.

    An upcoming release of LPS will include a simplified set of form-creation tags, but we are using an HTML-like approach which we expect to be familiar to a broader audience.

    We are also investigating the XForms spec and determining how it might fit into our solution in a future release.

    [As to the name Laszlo, you will find a number of "Easter eggs" if you look carefully.]

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