On Fri, Oct 15, 2010 at 10:28 AM, Christian Funder Sommerlund < [email protected]> wrote:
> IMHO it still boils down to actually implementing a theming engine (which > has been discussed a couple of times earlier) so that it is actually > possible to easily change the interface... > The core problem is that we've basically rolled our own (rather crappy) Java web framework, which is ridiculous when you consider the amount of effort that goes into web frameworks like Wicket, GWT, Play, and many others. Of course, reinventing the wheel is nothing new for Freenet :-/ The solution, as I've advocated many times, is to switch to an existing web framework, and I favor GWT. Yes this entails a full redesign, but I think this is necessary anyway. The current UI is way too developer-centric. Its basically been designed from the back-end forward, rather than the right way to do UIs which is from the user backwards. Switching to GWT has the following benefits: - Retheming it becomes as simple as modifying CSS - Issues like MVC separation are taken out of our hands, and handled by the framework - Its pure Java - User interaction is much easier and more powerful, it does stuff like AJAX without having to think about it - There are excellent free dev tools for it, like GWT Developer The arguments that have been presented against it are: 1) Javascript is insecure This argument is entirely specious, since the only Javascript the browser would be running is that served up from the Freenet codebase. If they are already running Java written by us, also running Javascript written by us doesn't increase their risk in any way whatsoever. 2) What about people who don't have Javascript enabled or use terminal browsers like lynx? Right now we have maybe 20k concurrent users. Google and other websites use GWT for apps with millions, perhaps tens of millions of users. If Google is prepared to make Javascript a requirement for mainstream web apps that serve millions of users, then we should certainly be comfortable with doing-so for our app that serves thousands. The idea that we should delay fixing our UI for even one second because lynx users might not like it is laughable, when we are probably losing hundreds of users per day to our current crappy user interface. Giving preference to the needs of a very small group of tech-savvy users at the expense of the vast majority of potential users is exactly the flawed thinking that has limited Freenet's growth over the last decade. We need to get away from that attitude if we are to grow our userbase beyond Freenet's current limited audience. Ian. -- Ian Clarke CEO, SenseArray Email: [email protected] Ph: +1 512 422 3588
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