Introducing JRapid WebForms (Part 1)
Hi ! I’m back again. In this post I’ll present you a new tool you will find extremely useful for adding user interaction to your web pages, no programming required.
A few weeks ago JRapid released WebForms, which basically allows no programmer users to create and manage web forms in their web pages. The forms you create are stored in an own JRapid project so you can keep your work online and access it whenever you want. Publishing is just a one-click action which automatically deploys your project in JRapid’s scalable servers.
As said above, no programming is required, WebForms are modeled in JML (JRapid Modeling Language) which is plain XML. If your are not much familiarized with XML you can use the “Design” mode which is quite intuitive.
Usually designers depend on programmers to simply add a “Contact me” or “Poll” like forms. I always say, “designers should desing and coders should code”. Of course both should know about each others world but be realist, designers know nothing about server-side programming and coders just don’t have designer’s “eye” !
JRapid WebForms allow designers and low level skill programming users to embed web forms in their pages following a really easy 5-steps guided process.
But, what does it mean embed a form? What does WebForms really do? We are so used to see forms in web pages that it’s common to forget what happens inside ! Having a web form in your page where users can submit information implies having, somewhere around the world, a database to store the data, client-side (browser-side) programming to send the data and server-side programming to store the data in the database. Finally, a simple HTML form which is what final users see.
But… where does these data goes? As I said before, to your personal database in JRapid’s servers. These data can be accessed through your administration’s panel which is automatically created after the form. This panel comes with some cool charts and listings for displaying the data, and if you are a JRapid developer you can embed maps, BI, etc.
Check it ! Hope it helps you to get rid of unskilled PHP developers !
