Topic awaiting preservation: Good/Any Dynamic Forms Engine

Does anyone know of any forms engines that might be out there?

I have a really complex database that is used to drive some web forms, and what I need is some dynamic way of creating forms, saving their layout to the database and being able to do different queries on these forms. This gets complicated by forms having inner relations, and needing to be searched etc.

I thought that I could write one myself but it is quickly becoming something that would take a boatload of time. Do any of you know of an database schema that would support dynamic forms, or even an application that lets you create on the fly forms that can be related to other forms, have calculated fields and the whole 9 yards?

Dan @ Code Town

I am currently working on something similar, and it is taking a huge boatload of time. So if anyone knows of something that already exists like that, I'd be very happy to hear about it as well.

I have been thinking more and more about this, and I think that the problem is that I am the thing I am trying to do is not relational at all. I am thinking that an XML database would be the better way of going about something like this.

It would remove all of the headaches (one would hope).

It would be using something like eXist or the Berkeley XML DB.

I am not sure as I am really still trying to wrap my head all the way around this problem, but it does appear to be a ballooning problem.

Dan @ Code Town

An XML database sounds like it could help out a lot. Are there any good guides around on using Berkeley with PHP that you know of?

Not that I know of, the whole XML DB thing is really new.

I believe Sleep Cats has a PHP API for the database that might help you out. I have run the DB standalone and it is pretty simple, all XQuery.

Dan @ Code Town