Forms

Intro

The Kauri Forms module implements a browser targeted (Javascript based) form framework.

The goal of this framework is to provide a formal and systematic approach to end-user data-entry. Important to note here is that it is not serving more generic end-user interaction and UI effects. For the latter we totally rely upon the features of jQuery and jQuery UI which are offered through separate kauri-modules.

In clear wording: the problem it tries to tackle is to enable the building of browser-based interaction screens that allow the end-user to read, modify and save (or create) some kind of data-structure. This data-structure is exchanged between the form-framework and the back-end in the known JSON format.

Requirements

By design this framework clearly assumes modern browser technology to be available:

• It depends on jQuery, a base Javascript library. 
• In sync with the REST orientation/mindset of Kauri, this framework will appeal to client-applications to manage application state and to use Ajax requests to the available REST services.

These assumptions boil down to: we assume a fairly modern browser (supporting Ajax requests) with Javascript support turned on. We think this largely fits today's common practice.

NOTE:
At the time of writing this module does not do an effort to support some graceful degrading towards browsers/deployments that do not meet these requirements. Rest assured though, like all Kauri modules it is entirely optional to use it or not.

RIA meets ROA

The above proceeds on one of our believes: that ROA (resource oriented architecture) designs assume smarter clients that are able to control their own application state. The latter are commonly grouped under the term Rich Internet Applications (RIA).

These RI-Architectures come in many implementation variants, some of which offered through specific (some paying) development environments. Most of those have a flexible way to deal with back-end (Ajax) requests and will thus invariantly be usable with the mid-tier-service modules delivered with Kauri.

Further reading:

• the concepts behind the operation of the kauri-forms
• the reference of available stuff

Additionally you probably want to check up on the related samples in the Kauri distribution.