Thu Nov 11, 2004
In 2004 I created this form system for medical investigations about breathing problems. Looking back at it I see it’s similar to what Macromedia/Adobe later built with their Flex platform, or the XForms standard: I created my own XML syntax to define forms with thousands of inputs, limits, validation, rules and plugins. This same system was used in 5 different investigations for gathering data from thousands of patients.
The whole interface was only 34 kb heavy (unlike Flex applications which tend to be much heavier, even for a “hello world”). The XML was parsed on runtime, so editing XML form definitions was a very quick proccess.
- Multi page form printing with intelligent layout using Flash.
- Data is read from and stored in MySQL database using AMFPHP remoting.
- Data can be exported in Excel format for analysis.
- Flash Plug-in system makes it possible to leave the system unchanged when using the form in new investigations that require new automatic calculations. Those are added in external SWF files.
- Fields include tooltips indicating valid ranges.
- Data is validated, completion progress indicated.
- Interface colors and typography are defined in external CSS file (using a method I invented).
The project was handed to me by Juan Cardona.
