REQUEST FOR TESTERS (Just a few minutes of your time, all you need is a POD)
Over the past few months we have been working to make SOLID PODs an archive repository for online forms to submit to.
Using a FormRouter Account, it is now possible to setup an online form that can route directly into a SOLID POD Inbox. This allows any person with a SOLID POD to get a copy of the form data they filled out. The submission may include a copy of the form as a PDF. In addition, we have built a File Extraction Utility to open PDFs and attachments directly out of your POD Inbox.
We are looking for people to try a form, review what we have done and comment on the data written to their POD inbox.
The form submits nicely and the data shows up in my inbox. While temporary ontologies are fine for demos, the ultimate utility of this will depend on the actual ontology used. For example, " <soliddemo#firstname>" is pretty useless in a general context compared to using a predicate from the VCARD or FOAF ontologies. And for more complex forms, the form owner will presumably have thier own ontology which they will need the form to implement. For example, suppose I want a form for people to report bird sightings – how do I as the form owner make sure that the form captures the geographic and biologic details I need in an ontology I need them in?
More generally, I wonder about using a server-side app rather than a client-side app. Why would I want all my user’s data flowing through some else’s server when it could just as easily go directly from them to me?
I believe there are many uses for Form Router; A unique feature of Form Router is that you do not need to be signed into a pod in order to send the Form. So you can essentially send a message to anyones inbox via the form.
Sorry if I’m sounding negative, I am not by any means denying there are possible uses for this and it is very nicely implemented. But anyone can send a message to anyone’s inbox via any HTML form without this. Just capture the form data and write it to the inbox with solid-auth-client or solid-file-client.
I would like to be able to use it for chatting back and forth with the party to whom I sent a form to.
I like this app because I can use to send an invitation, news article, a link, or a random message to any Solid users Inbox without being signed in to my pod, or the pod receiving the form. In fact, you don’t need to be signed into Solid at all to send someone a message with Form Router.
After speaking with Jim from FormRouter, I see I’ve misunderstood how they intend to use this app. He said “The FormRouter account is used for the high volume secure data capture and the POD is used by the filler of forms. This will give many people a reason to have a POD and help drive adoption.” In other words, the POD portion of the app is a service to the filler of the form, not to the provider of the form who will get the data in some other format depending on their needs. This is a very interesting idea, giving us control over the data we submit to others.
The goal is to make PODs an archive for all form submitted by a specific POD user.
For example: you fill out a government form. FormRouter passes the data to the government agency database, and a copy of the form is written to your POD so you have a record of what you sent. Because you have a record, you can reference it, share it or tell the agency that you no longer want them to use it to meet GDPR regulations etc.
What a Killer App! I love this! Thank you for posting the link to your site. I am sure it will be well received. I like this app because I can use it to send an invitation via form, news article, a link, or a random message to any Solid users Inbox without being signed in to my pod, or the pod receiving the form. In fact, you don’t need to be signed into Solid at all to send someone a message with Form Router.