FiForms Framework 1.1.0

August 19, 2008

FiForms version 1.1 has had a complete overhaul since version 0.9.3, which was released in 2005. We are planning to get back onto a regular update and release schedule with this release. This is the first FiForms release which uses the FiForms XML as the primary application development method. Once the 1.1 release is out of Beta, the version 1.1 XML schemas will be frozen, and all new development of the XML language will take place in version 1.2. Also new in this release, we have switched from using the GNU LGPL to the GNU GPL. Since we anticipate that most developers will be using FiForms XML to develop new applications, we do not except that this change will have any significant impact on commercial or open-source uses of FiForms, as distribution of applications developed purely in FiForms XML is not restricted by the license of Framework.

New Features/Changes

• Significant additions to the XML Application Framework and documentation.
• Changed license to the GNU GPL instead of the LGPL
• Added a web-based administration interface to create applications and forms, install application packages, and do simple administrative tasks from the browser.
• Added AJAX drop-down boxes and many javascript shortcuts to user interface
• Added and improved input boxes, including iNumber (for numbers), iDateTime (for date/time fields), and iFile (for images)
• Added the ability for users to sort and filter by columns
• Added paging to sheet view, so that very large recordsets can be displayed.
• Many changes made to the classes--applications written in 0.9.3 will likely require modifications to be made compatibile with version 1.1.
• Many changes were made to configuration syntax, including setup of modular applications. New configuration will likely need to be created when upgrading.

Choose the right download for you

Windows Users

If you are new to Apache and MySQL and you don't have these already installed on your computer, we recommend that you download and install the package XAMPP+FiForms. This is the "Lite" version of XAMPP for Windows with FiForms added.

Download XAMPP Lite 1.6.7 + FiForms 1.1.0 (self-extracting exe)

Follow these installation instructions for installing the XAMPP+FiForms package.

If you have already installed MySQL, Apache, and PHP, then you will only need to download the FiForms Framework zip file, which includes the Windows binaries needed for XML processing and unzipping packages.

Download FiForms 1.1.0 (zip)

Follow these directions for installing FiForms under Windows.

Linux / Mac Users

Use your distribution package manager to install Apache, MySQL, and PHP, or install XAMPP for your operating system. Then download the FiForms Framework tar.bz2 archive or zip archive and follow these detailed installation instructions to get FiForms running.

If you are using Debian or one of it's relatives (Ubuntu, etc.) you can try the (exerimental) Debian packages. This is likely to be the quickest way to get FiForms running on Debian Linux (although these packages have had only a little testing so far).

Add the following lines to your /etc/apt/sources.list file:

# The FiForms Framework
deb http://debian.fiforms.org/ all/