For serveral years, I have been looking for a way to migrate away from desktop GUI/client-server programming onto the browser based network computing model of programming. Unfortunately, up until recently, browser based programs are very limited - due to the limitation of HTML itself. Eventhough PythonCard hasn't keep up with the latest widgets in wxpython, the programs so created still works a lot better - until now.
If you look at programs at some of the major sites these days - like Google calendar, Netflix, blockbuster, and so forth - you would undoubtedly notice that the quality of the programs are pretty much at par with the desktop programs we use everyday. Since the curious mind wanted to know how these programs are done, I started investigating and found out that what a difference a few years have made to Javascript - the once much hated beast of the Internet age - and during my search for perfection, I found Qooxdoo (http:// qooxdoo.org/). Qooxdoo is a Javascript toolkit that sits on top of Ajax. Take a look at some of the *impressive* widgets at http://demo.qooxdoo.org/current/showcase/#Form. So, what's that got to do with Pythoncard? Read on. After trying for a few days learning Qooxdoo, my head really really hurts. Getting too old to learn this stuff, I was mumbling. Then I looked some more. I found QxTransformer (http:// sites.google.com/a/qxtransformer.org/qxtransformer/Home) which is a XSLT toolkit that creats XML code that invoke qooxdoo. So, what's that got to do with Pythoncard? Read on. After trying for a few days learning QxTransformer, my head really really hurts. Getting too old to learn this stuff, I was mumbling. I want Pythoncard. Damn Pythoncard! Once you got hooked, everything else looks impossibly complicated and unproductive. But then I looked closer. It turns out the XML file created by QxTransformer is *very* similar in structure when compared to the resource files used in PythonCard. Since there are no GUI builders for QxTransformer, and I can't affort to buy the one for Qooxdoo (Java! Yuk!), I decided to roll up my sleeves, took the Pythoncard's Layout Manager and modified it and created my own "Poor Man's Qooxdoo GUI Layout Designer". The result? See the partially completed application at: http://test.powersystemadvisors.com/ and the same application running from the desktop: http://test.powersystemadvisors.com/desktopHelloWorld.jpg It shouldn't be long before I can fill in the gaps and have the GUI builder maps the rest of the Pythoncard widgets to Qooxdoo widgets. Once I've done that, I can have the same application running from the desktop, or from the browser. And it shouldn't take more than minutes to create such applications. Welcome to the modernized world of Pythoncard!!! -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
