Method and system for cross-platform form creation and deployment

摘要

The present invention is directed to systems and methods of creating and deploying electronic forms for collecting information from a user using a browser, where the browser may be one of a plurality of browser platforms. Characteristics of forms are entered by a human designer using a form designer by using drag-and-drop operations, and stored in XML template files. The form may be previewed by the designer. When a user on the Internet (or an intranet) requests a form by a browser, the characteristics of the browser are sensed and a form appropriate for the browser is deployed to the browser by a form server. Information is then captured from the user. The form may also be saved or printed.

主权项

1. A method for creating and serving customized electronic forms to a plurality of users, the users using different ones of a plurality of browser platforms, each of the plurality of browser platforms having different respective browser platform characteristics, the method comprising:
receiving a request for an electronic form from a user, the request including data supplied by the user; retrieving a form definition template defining an electronic form to be displayed to a user, the template being deployable for display to users on each of the plurality of browser platforms; initializing the form definition template by accessing previous state data for the user and merging the previous state data into the form definition template; merging the data supplied by the user into the initialized template; determining the browser platform characteristics for the user browser; transforming the initialized template into an electronic form compatible with the user browser platform; and delivering the electronic form to the user browser.