Use of HTML forms is encouraged. The M-Business Sync Server is designed to handle all form submissions and requests for users from within your channel. This makes for ease-of-use by your users. Never design forms with the expectation that the user will manage them using the Forms Manager. The Forms Manager is an advanced option not designed to for handling user-interaction with your content.
Mobile devices often have limited storage space, so it is crucial that you limit your content to what users actually want to see. One way to make sure you have done this is to use forms to ask users what they want to see. For example, financial sites use forms to have users set up watch lists of stocks they want to track. Weather sites use forms to have users enter the city and country they want the forecast for.
M-Business Client supports all of the form elements except the file input element. In addition, it supports the following:
The scribble element (INPUT type=scribble) is supported on Palm OS. Users click this element to open a small window that allows them to scribble inside. It is useful
for capturing signatures. For example:
<INPUT TYPE="scribble" NAME="name" SIZE="width, height" ALT="Alternate Text">
The push button element (INPUT type=button) introduced in HTML 4.0.
The scripting hooks defined in the 4.0 specification: onChange, onClick, onFocus, onBlur, and so on.
A huge difference with your channel vs. desktop Web design is that you can expect most forms to be submitted when the user is offline. This means that the user won't be able to get back the response page from the form submission until the next synchronization. Besides creating the forms to be used in your channel, ensure that your offline form submissions are handled smoothly. For more information on how to do this, see Managing Channel Form Submissions.
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