You should already have a sense of how forms work in the normal online world of desktop Web browsers. You create a form and associate it with an action—often a cgi-bin script of some sort. A user enters data into the form through text fields, checkboxes, and so on. Using M-Business Client's capabilities, you also can create a form with fields prepopulated with a user's e-mail address and zip code, and, if you feel like being clever, you can enter data for the user through hidden fields. Regardless of what elements are in the form, the data is passed on as parameters to the action associated with that form. The action will perform some sort of processing on the data received, and then outputs its results in the form of an HTML document.

This all works fine in the online world, like with your desktop Web browser at home. You are connected to the Web server when you first get the form, you are connected when you complete the form and transmit it to the action, and you are still there when the action is complete and the Web server has an HTML document to throw back at you.

Indeed, this is exactly how M-Business Client works when you are using a mobile device that is in online mode (usually through a modem). You can access forms, send your input, and view results all at once. However, if you are like the majority of mobile device owners without a modem, forms work a little differently.