The Orbeon Forms Blog

This is the Orbeon Forms blog. Stay up to date with the latest releases and new features of Orbeon Forms!

From Java to Scala

Believe it or not, there was a time when Java was cool! But obviously this is no longer the case. Language features and syntax matter, and while Java still rocks because of its rich ecosystem of libraries and its VM, the Java language itself has stalled (Java 7 adds a few... More

Switching to CoffeeScript

JavaScript feels like Stink Spirit, the character in Miyazaki’s Spirited Away, who one day arrives at a bathhouse, loaded with all the filth it accumulated through the years. In the movie, Chihiro’s, through her courage and generosity, helps Stink Spirit cleanse, and while its essence is unchanged, it comes out... More

Orbeon Forms 3.9.0 Release Candidate 1

We are happy to announce a release candidate build of Orbeon Forms 3.9! Orbeon Forms 3.9 features over 300 improvements since Orbeon Forms 3.8. Major improvements include: Performance and reliability (including the new XPath dependency analysis engine) Liferay support A new implementation of the upload control Updates to Form Runner,... More

How writing in the cloud has improved the Orbeon Forms documentation

We have recently finished moving all our documentation to the Orbeon wiki, powered by Google Sites. All the way back to 2003 (maybe 2002) the documentation of the Orbeon platform was written in a text editor with an XML syntax. Nicely structured markup has benefits, such as the ability to process files... More

Be persistent: if it fails, try again

Do you remember the last time you loaded a web page, the page started to load, but then stalled… after a little while, you hit that reload button, and the page showed up just fine. The browser reload button puts you in control when page loads don’t go through. But... More

How Scala helps with Orbeon Forms unit tests

For the server component of Orbeon Forms, we started using the Scala language in addition to Java last year. A killer feature of Scala for Java programmers is that it integrates very smoothly with Java. For example, Scala classes can extend Java classes an vice-versa, and all Java libraries can be used... More

Out of the box sample data for the demo forms

Orbeon Forms comes with several demonstration forms, including the Bookshelf, Contact, and DMV-14 forms. When you download recent builds of Orbeon Forms, you will notice that there is now sample data in these forms out of the box, especially the Bookshelf form. How is this done? Orbeon Forms ships with... More

The state of Orbeon Forms, Part 9

Here is a summary of the Orbeon Forms developments for October 2010: Releases Orbeon Forms 3.8. Orbeon Forms 3.8 was released in May in both CE and PE versions. Next release. There have been a huge number of commits and bug-fixes since version 3.8 and the code base is getting ready for... More

Orbeon Forms 3.8 now available

We are pleased to announce the availability of Orbeon Forms 3.8! Orbeon Forms 3.8 features over 350 improvements since Orbeon Forms 3.7.1. Don't miss the complete release notes. Orbeon Forms 3.8 is the first release of Orbeon Forms with two separate editions: Orbeon Forms 3.8 CE (Community Edition) Orbeon Forms 3.8... More

Orbeon Forms 3.8 Release Candidate now available

We are happy to announce a release candidate of Orbeon Forms 3.8! Orbeon Forms 3.8 features over 350 improvements since Orbeon Forms 3.7.1. Don’t miss the complete release notes. Orbeon Forms 3.8 is the first release of Orbeon Forms with two separate editions: Orbeon Forms 3.8 CE (Community Edition) Orbeon Forms 3.8... More