Re: BPIs: The Simplest GUIs
- From: "Alf P. Steinbach" <alfps@xxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2009 08:11:04 +0200
* Gene:
On Jun 6, 7:06 pm, mimus <tinmimu...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
But the simplest GUI programming of all should be that which takes
advantage of the fact that every general-use platform supports at least
one web-browser which in essence encapsulates the GUI capability of that
platform, by writing GUI programs as simple servers communicating with the
user via ordinary Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)/Extensible Hypertext
Markup Language (xhtml) pages, the same as used on the Web.
Such browser program interface (BPI) programming will substitute for the
above-mentioned complexities a general one-time dealing with the
networking library of the platform for which such programs will written to
provide a "boiler-plate" networking-style interface for that platform, and
then for each specific program the writing of the core program as a server
and the relatively simple writing of ordinary HTML/xhtml pages for the
user interfaces, which latter skill is of course already widespread.
It will also readily allow network interactions with such programs.
This is a _very_ old idea. I used a java-based local web server GUI
application in 1997. See also AWS for a little web server designed
primarily to provide GUI power to a language with only modest other
GUI development options. One problem is that locally installed
applications are expected by users to have a certain slick look and
feel. These are difficult to provide reliably, especially when you
have little or no ability to control the browser configuration.
Users' expectations are violated when an installed applicaiton summons
a web browser. Installation quirkiness and the requisite open ports
for a web server are problems very expensive to solve. Consequently
the idea never got traction.
Please do note that a number of such technologies are currently widespread:
A Windows HTML applications.
An [.hta] file that runs locally.
B AJAX-based web applications.
E.g. most things from Google.
C Various desktop gadget technologies (Konqueror/Yahoo, Windows Vista gadgets,
Mac gadgets, Google gadgets, Opera gadgets, etc.)
D Mozilla XUL.
Mostly for web applications and for Mozilla app extensions, but there's
also work on support for stand-alone local XUL apps.
E Microsoft's programming model for Vista and beyond.
So indeed it's a very old idea, and contrary to your claim it has "got traction", i.e. become popular and in widespread use.
In all of the example technologies mentioned above applications do have a "certain slick look and feel". That's not a problem. The main problem is that the security model for web browsing doesn't mesh well with the required functionality of a local application, and in terms of that A and E measure up, D may measure up, and B and C are mostly restricted to GUI side doing the real stuff on a server (which of course may be a local one, but still).
Cheers & hth.,
- Alf
--
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.
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