On 26 Nov 2010, at 07:34, Peter Dekkers wrote:

> I've been developing a platform for running multiple types of widgets in 
> regular web pages and of course support for the W3C widgets should not be 
> missing. A very nice specification. I especially like the fact that the 
> "deployment unit" contains all the files and the spec itself tries to be as 
> clear and precise as possible. 
> 
> However the specification seems to be geared towards "standalone desktop 
> applications", and not so much running the widgets as part of a regular web 
> page. When I investigated a little more, there doesn't seem however too much 
> stopping the widget running in an ordinary web page.

I think the original landscape report mostly focussed on desktop-based widget 
engines, but the spec itself is geared these days to be a general 
packaged-web-app format for use in browsers, mobile devices, desktops, TVs and 
appliance, and all kinds of other uses. 

> Two of the main functions missing that I could identify so far are:
> 
> - A widget.onReady() function that gives the page the change to prepare 
> everything before the widget dependent code is executed.

Hmm, not sure about this one?

> - Some way to proxy XMLHttpRequest in order to avoid not same origin security 
> validations. A simple way would be a widget function that simply rewrites the 
> URL to a proxied URL.

We do this in Apache Wookie:

http://incubator.apache.org/wookie/faq.html

> Personally I think it would be great to have the W3C widgets run both inside 
> a normal webpage and as a standalone application. However is this also 
> something that might be considered by the people in charge of the 
> specifications, or is this something that will never be in scope? Any 
> enlightenment would be great.

Again, see Apache Wookie:

http://incubator.apache.org/wookie/

There are also a few other browser-based W3C Widgets implementations out there 
I've come across.

> P.S For those interested, on http://www.jbaron.com:9090/w3c there are some 
> Opera widgets running in a web page as a small proof of concept (certainly 
> not a complete implementation). The same site also has some pages with other 
> types of widgets. 

Cool, its got one of mine! :-D

> 
> 
> regards,
> 
> Peter

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