I was reading up on Rich Internet Client (RIA) products last night and I
stumbled upon OpenLaszlo <http://www.openlaszlo.org/>
The product is mature and supports DHTML and uses XML for its scripting/GUI
language.
I wanted to mention this because the framework is structured in such a way that
data only needs to be formatted in XML format.
For example, a normal script which has embedded data would look like this:
<canvas>
<dataset name="dset">
<employee>
<firstName>John</firstName>
<lastName>Smith</lastName>
<phone>617-536-7855</phone>
</employee>
</dataset>
<text datapath="dset:/employee/firstName/text()"/>
<text datapath="dset:/employee/lastName/text()"/>
<text datapath="dset:/employee/phone/text()"/>
<simplelayout axis="x"/>
</canvas>
Now, it can also retrieve data from a server-side script (in this example, a
JSP) to generate the XML data dynamically:
<canvas>
<dataset name="dset"
request="true" type="http"
src="getemployees.jsp"/>
<simplelayout axis="y"/>
<view datapath="dset:/phonebook/employee">
<simplelayout axis="x"/>
<text datapath="firstName/text()"/>
<text datapath="lastName/text()"/>
<text datapath="phone/text()"/>
</view>
</canvas>
This means that using OpenLaszlo and the guide here
http://www.jsoftware.com/jwiki/Web and the upcoming J7/JHS would allow us to
create rich web based applications like these (made using OpenLaszlo):
Gliffy <http://www.gliffy.com/>
Showcase <http://www.openlaszlo.org/showcase>
r/Alex
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