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JForma

JForma 1.1

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JForma

Swiftly design and develop HTML form based applications with JForma. This extensible, powerful Java application framework simplifies the development of web based applications.

JForma falls within the realm of what is often called a 'framework', the main purposes of which are to speed up applications development and to lower the level of technical expertise needed in such areas as Java and SQL programming. For example, you may import table definitions from one or more SQL databases and then, using the custom tags from the form library in the JSPs you write, create HTML forms including fields from those tables.

JForma uses both browser based validation, consisting of JavaScript, and server based validation on the data the user has entered and makes the necessary updates to the database(s) when a form is submitted. Parent/child (and even grandchild) relationships are supported between tables in the database.

Navigation (i.e. scrolling) through lists of child records is easily achieved together with detail editing of specific records within those lists. Filtering of records in a list and a useful pop up ‘find’ facility are all available in your JSPs with little additional effort. Multilingual tables are supported automatically if they conform to a specific predefined table structure.

JForma supports templating and menus to give applications you write a consistent look and feel. You can create ‘tab pages’ with dynamic tab images to both simplify your menu structure and to lead the user through a simple ‘work flow’ style approach to data entry.

Access to the applications you write is controlled by user id and password verification with automatic detection of any attempt to access pages by a user who has not logged in. Users are assigned to locales and data is displayed and entered in HTML forms in a localized format, including the use of time zone differences where appropriate.

You may extend the capabilities of JForma by writing custom Java classes and incorporating them in to JForma at appropriate points.

JForma contains not just the tag library for writing applications with, but also includes a full browser based Forms Administration System to help you in importing table definitions, creating menus, defining users and their permissions and much more. The Forms Administration System also allows you to monitor system usage and even helps you to debug new applications you are writing by the inclusion of a trace log facility and the ability to temporarily switch locales to see the effect of the localization and multilingual tables on your application. The Forms Administration System is, itself, written using JForma and includes full pop up on-line help.

Since JForma is written in 100% Java it can work on any server that supports JSP specification version 1.1 as an extension to your web server. JForma can access a range of SQL databases including Oracle, Sybase, DB2, MS SQL Server and PostgreSQL and can be extended to work with many others. Version 3 of MySQL is, unfortunately, not supported since it does not include sub-queries. Version 4, however, may change this situation. JForma does not include JDBC driver software which you will therefore need to supply for your particular database(s).