In the years since we designed FProxy, UI design has come a long way. In a sense we were ahead of our time, since many desktop GUIs are now implemented as web apps (eg. Slack), although embedded in native containers.
In more recent years a stack of tools have emerged for designing webapps. JavaScript is growing up, ES6 <http://weblogs.asp.net/dwahlin/getting-started-with-es6-%E2%80%93-the-next-version-of-javascript> supports some nice language features like a compact lambda syntax, and pre-processors like TypeScript <http://www.typescriptlang.org/> introduce static typing, while allowing use of ES6 features on browsers that don't yet support it. Bootstrap <http://getbootstrap.com/> allows non-designers (ie. us) to build pretty UIs, and React <http://facebook.github.io/react/> allows concurrent updates of the UI in a convenient form. GraphQL <http://facebook.github.io/react/blog/2015/05/01/graphql-introduction.html> is an emerging replacement for REST for client-server communication (and a library <https://github.com/andimarek/graphql-java> exists for server-side Java support), although it's still quite early. Reading this article <http://draketo.de/english/freenet/forgotten-cryptopunk-paradise> in particular, it hits home the potential Freenet could have with a modern UI, and the tools now exist for us to build a solid UI even if UI design isn't the core competency of the typical Freenet volunteer. Thoughts? Ian. _______________________________________________ Devl mailing list Devl@freenetproject.org https://emu.freenetproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/devl
