🚀 go-pugleaf

Are there any standards (defacto or dejure) for specifying the representation
of forms? I define a form as a structured document, which
contains various editable fields in a matrix of constant text. A 3270 screen
is a degenerate case of a form (and 3270 data stream is one standard for
representing such simplistic forms). ANSI FIMS generalizes this, but my
impression is that this is a 'private' standard of DEC and is being otherwise
ignored. A more modern approach to forms would be as a sort of compound
document. Most word processors can build forms, but these are in their
proprietary formats (I guess that means Wordperfect (gag) files are a
candidate defacto standard).

I am interested in sending forms through email (or a centralized groupware
system) as a basis for implementing transaction processing systems. To be
viable, there needs to be a standard way of encoding forms.

Is there any indication of an emergeing standard for form-structured documents?
There seem to be dozens of proposed groupware/email/distributed-object standard
efforts. E.g., Apple OLE, Microsoft MAPI and WOSA, Lotus/Novell et. al. VIM, 
Borland OEX, etc. Can anyone tell me if these are at all relevant?

Any comments or references are welcome.
THanks - Jonathan.

Jonathan Edwards		edwards@intranet.com
IntraNet, Inc.			617-527-7020