complex web forms and javascript

Question

I need to create a few data heavy complicated forms. Currently, the information is being entered into a spread sheet, but the users will need to enter the information into the online form where it will be saved to a database.

The problem is that the business users currently using the spread sheet aren't going to want to use the online application if it isn't as easy as entering the information into the spread sheet. This is further complicated in that the information they are entering into the spread sheet is represented by three different DB tables where one "object" is composed of two of the others. I would prefer to not have them have to go through multiple forms.

Some of what I have been thinking is:

• Use of auto complete where possible
• Hiding/removing form fields dynamically
• possible wizard style page flow??

I've been googling for other data heavy web forms but can't seem to really find any good examples. I am familiar with jQuery and prototypejs and have also tried googling for frameworks designed for data heavy applications but didn't come up with anything.

Any thoughts?

Thanks.

UPDATE: Wow, I will have to take a more in depth look at these. Thanks!

Answer 1

Have you looked at any of the jQuery Form Wizard plugins?

1. http://thecodemine.org/
2. http://www.sagecraft-studios.com/

just two examples I found, but haven't used, from searching Google.

Answer 2

ExtJS: http://www.extjs.com/products/js/ has some extremely powerful and flexible forms and datatable functionality. Check out their form examples here: http://www.extjs.com/deploy/dev/examples/#sample-10

Answer 3

Should be easy.

jQuery has a thriving plug-in ecosystem. There are plugins for grids, autocomplete and validation and tonnes of others. The data can be posted back to an MVC controller or to a webforms WebMethod using JSON.

Also I agree with Ryan Doherty - extjs is very good for this, but is not jQuery unfortunately.