On Sep 4, 2008, at 10:57 AM, pauric wrote:
I would appreciate you elaborating on the differences it takes to
create a tool such as
http://www.splashup.com/splashup/Splashup.swf
versus what it took to create the same interface/feature set, etc
back in the equivalent version of Photoshop.
What on earth is your point? You reference a Flex product. An example
of what I already said was RIA+. You are pointing to an example that
Kontra is specifically saying is going to die due to Chrome's existence.
For your reference, Kontra is trying to say apps like WebSketch are
the new paradigm. Please see:
http://websketch.com
You'll need to make an account. Again, we built the web page editor,
not the site. Once in the editor, note that:
* Drag and drop objects
* Inline palettes, completely dragable
* Inline text editing and formatting
* Direct manipulation for laying out objects, including position and
size
* Flickr and YouTube integration, with real-time previews
* Snap to grid, Snap to column
* Multiple Undo
* Adjust color, type properties, links, etc.
* Auto adjustment of layout to move objects out of the way to allow
web standards compliant markup on that backend
* Integration of Google Gadgets
* Comment objects with full styling capability
* A lot more that I'm not going to list here...
WebSketch is a web application *perfectly* suited for something like
Chrome. It's all JavaScript, and again, requires nothing but a
browser. (They are currently fixing their browser sniffing and
checking against Chrome as I type this, so I can't wait to see what
performance gains it gets.) The example you posted is a Flex product
that is only inside the browser because that's the old Flex model.
Adobe is specifically building AIR to break away from the browser so
the app you pointed to can live in its own world and spread its wings,
where all those palettes can be real palettes again, and the product
doesn't have to be confined to a single window.
In other words, it can start to use richer, non-browser (single
window, largely page based) like interface paradigms, which is
specifically what I've been saying. I agree that there's a large
amount that you can do with RIA+ that gets you very close to
traditional desktop application design. I think I must have said that
at least two or three times in my messages thus far and I can only
imagine you are so blinded with your need to argue with me that you
aren't reading what I'm actually writing.
In fact, I'll take a minute right now to find a snippet.
Done... here you go:
"Example: Palettes. How will palette slave windows work in the browser
driven web application world? Currently, they don't. They live inside
the parent port and and are fundamentally faked. Is that bad? No. It's
fine up to a point. But once you reach that point, you suddenly want a
lot more. Can you get really far with that approach? Absolutely. We've
done it here many times now. Is that distance far enough to negate
things like AIR and such? I'm not confident of that sort of claim
whatsoever. I honestly don't know."
Or here:
"AIR is explicitly trying to be an application environment and
explicitly *not* a web browser. AIR is moving in the direction of
building lightweight desktop applications with web functionality that
do the things all good applications can do but not with the heavy
development cost of traditional application development. And as Jared
pointed out, AIR is adding a lot more to make it an even richer
application environment that is explicitly not a browser with web app
content inside of it. In other words, the fabled RIA environment.
We'll call this RIA+ though, as AIR is also trying to build just
enough into it to open it up to new application innovations if
possible."
Oh yes... here as well:
"Why do we need another browser? I don't think we do, quite frankly.
We need is a platform for robust, rich apps that finally goes beyond
the browser and gives us back what was lost from the world of desktop
application design. I know AIR is going that route, so I would think
Google wants to compete with that, not with Safari or Firefox."
Your example is an AIR example... not a web application built on
JavaScript example. You're example is going the RIA+ route. You're
example benefits specifically from not being constricted from dealing
with a Back button or URLs or RSS or any number of features that are
"browser" interactions.
As for the general question, there's a lot of design considerations
that go into making a desktop application that you specifically ignore
when you go the RIA+ route. Most of which have to do with an order of
control one layer above the AIR application platform. You pick an
application platform like AIR specifically because you feel its APIs
offer all that you need with little need to customize or otherwise
rewrite aspects of it.
--
Andrei Herasimchuk
Principal, Involution Studios
innovating the digital world
e. [EMAIL PROTECTED]
c. +1 408 306 6422
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