M. Honkala, A. Vainio XForms & SVG MITA Seminar, HUT SVG Introduction Features Benefits Simple Example Standardization Mobile Environment Current Status XForms Background Introduction MVC Model XForms Model User Interface Current Status Mobile Applications Mixing XML Languages Summary Relation to MITA Conclusions References

M. Honkala, A. Vainio SVG – Introduction Scalable Vector Graphics Scalable – scalable for different display resolutions Vector – flexibility compared to raster graphics (e.g. jpeg, png) Graphics – language for describing 2D graphics XML-based Markup language for textual presentation of vector graphics Usable as XML name space Stand-alone vs. Embedded SVG content Modularization enables the definition of profiles Standardized by W3C

M. Honkala, A. Vainio SVG – Features Examples Basic shapes Possibility to define symbols Raster effects (e.g. blurs, shadows) Interactive vs. Dynamic documents Animations can be included Events Scripting support (ECMAScript) …

M. Honkala, A. Vainio SVG - Benefits Vector graphics is expressed as mathematics (cf. bitmaps) Main benefits Small file size Resizing capabilities Flexibility Compatibility with other standards efforts Compatible with XML 1.0 SVG content can be used as SMIL media components Compatibility with HTML4 and XHTML Check SVG spec for further details

M. Honkala, A. Vainio SVG – Simple Example <svg width="12cm" height="4cm" viewBox=" " xmlns=" version="1.1"> Example rect01 - rectangle with sharp corners <rect x="1" y="1" width="1198" height="398" fill="none" stroke="blue" stroke-width="2"/> <rect x="400" y="100" width="400" height="200" fill="yellow" stroke="navy" stroke-width="10" />

M. Honkala, A. Vainio SVG – Standardization Standardized by W3C SVG Working group Many major industry players involved: Corel, Ericsson, Microsoft, Nokia, Adobe, IBM, Sun, Macromedia, Apple, HP, ZOOMON… The latest specification: SVG 1.1 Specification Modularization Errata found in 1.0

M. Honkala, A. Vainio SVG – Mobile Environment Two profiles especially targeted to mobile devices (SVG Mobile) SVG Tiny for mobile phones SVG Basic for smart phones and PDAs SVG Mobile included as supported media format Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS, TS ) Packet Switched Streaming (PSS, TS ) SVG Tiny mandatory, SVG Basic optional SVG software available for mobiles ZOOMON is the leading provider of SVG for mobile devices Opera plug-in Symbian Companion Technology Program

M. Honkala, A. Vainio SVG - Current Status Competing solutions Microsoft’s Vector Markup Language Macromedia FLASH Many SVG implementations available (see W3C’s SVG site) Adobe Acrobat Viewer SVG plug-in to Opera browser for Symbian by ZOOMON AB SVG Promotion: “Win Nokia 3650 – the best SVG mobile greeting card”

M. Honkala, A. Vainio XForms – Background HTML forms have severe limitations Do datatypes or validity checking No separation of data and presentation No inter-field calculations Low accessibility Hard to maintain Scripting is needed Lots of round-trips to the server

M. Honkala, A. Vainio XForms – Introduction W3C Recommendation XML based Fully integrates to other XML standards XPath XML Schema Solves most common use cases with declarative markup Define datatypes and other validity information of the form Inter-field calculations Event handling

M. Honkala, A. Vainio XForms – MVC Model Model-View-Controller architcture Clean separation of layers Model Instance data: Any XML data XML Schema: structure and datatypes Calculations View XForms User Interface + host document Controller The XForms Form Controls

M. Honkala, A. Vainio XForms - Model Instance data in any XML format Dynamic calculations and constraints defined with XPath Calculation engine takes care of calculation order Datatypes defined with XML Schema

M. Honkala, A. Vainio XForms - User Interface Common user interface controls Datatype sensitivity For instance, for xsd:date datatypes, show a date picker Repeating structures Shopping cart / structured editors Wizard or multipaged user interfaces

M. Honkala, A. Vainio XForms - Current Status W3C Recommendation Oct 2003 Already many implementations Clients Novell's XForms preview (Java client) Browser plugins X-Smiles from HUT (Java XML browser) FormsPlayer for IE 6.0 Server-side transcoders Chiba (Java based XForms-HTML transcoder)

M. Honkala, A. Vainio XForms – Mobile Applications Server-side implementations can already be used in mobile applications Having XForms client reduces round-trips and takes better advantage of the device dependent user interface XForms 1.0 needs a XML Schema and XPath processors. XForms Basic removes the need of XML Schema processor W3C Candidate Recommendation Only basic XML Schema datatypes supported No implementations yet

M. Honkala, A. Vainio Mixing XML Languages It is always possible to reference whole documents, written in different language (<html:object src=”image.svg”) This is limited For more functionality, it is necessary to mix different XML languages in a single document XML namespaces Current trend is to define modularized XML languages E.g. SMIL (Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language) 2.0 contains ~46 modules XHTML 1.1 contains ~20 modules XForms 1.0 has 8 modules

M. Honkala, A. Vainio Mixing XML Languages (cont.) SVG includes already the animation module from SMIL XForms can in theory be embedded in any displayable XML language XHTML 2.0 working draft includes XForms as the forms module SVG 1.2 working draft also includes XForms

M. Honkala, A. Vainio Summary: Relation to MITA XForms and SVG not directly included in MITA MITA presented Nokia’s vision some years ago XForms and SVG not mature enough that time SVG identified as an important technology for Nokia SVG included as supported media format for Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) Packet Switched Streaming (PSS)

M. Honkala, A. Vainio Summary: Conclusions XForms Still very new technology Already implementations Server-side transcoders can be used for mobile devices XForms Basic targeted to mobile devices No implementations yet SVG Many big companies involved Mobile environment addressed (SVG Tiny, SVG Basic) Incorporated in 3GPP MMS and PSS specifications Looking promising

M. Honkala, A. Vainio References - SVG SVG Working Group (specifications, implementations, etc.) 3GPP (MMS – TS , PSS – TS ) Articles, etc. New Mobile SVG Standard Graphics Format for Cell Phones Screens new_mobile_svg_standard_graphics.htm Nokia – The Rise of Mobile Graphics SVG: Modularized and Mobile ZOOMON joins Symbian Companion Technology Program

M. Honkala, A. Vainio References – XForms XForms Working Group (specifications, implementations, etc.) Articles, etc. What are XForms Ten implementations reviewed O'Reilly book: XForms Essentials