I agree with this. Our app is IE only, and it's amazing what you can do.
IFRAME's make great scrollable tables. The use of
document.getElementById("xxx").style.display="none" (or "") for
hiding/unhiding stuff is very extensive.
I disagree with the comment about layers tho. Our jsps are still only
displaying stuff. They arnt doing anything that the business layer should
atall.
Javascript/dhtml is amazing if you persist with what you want. I came
accross a webmail system the other day that i couldnt believe wasnt using
anything else for gui!
Daniel.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Frank Zammetti [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Sent: 04 June 2004 16:41
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: RE: [OT] thick client functionality in the browser
>
>
> I've personally made something of a career out of doing what your talking
> about. The applications I've built at work are known to have very
> Windows-like look, feel and functionality, much more so than most other
> web-based applications.
>
> To pull it off, two things are true... first, it is IE only. This is
> because of the secone: they are very heavily JavaScript, Dynamic HTML and
> CSS-based GUIs.
>
> It *IS* possibly to do this type of thing in a cross-browser
> fashion, but I
> think it's fair to say it is considerably harder, and certainly more
> time-consuming. Standardizing on IE for us was easy because it's already
> the corporate standard, and is for 99% of our clients (the other 1% we
> simply tell they either use IE for at least our apps our they
> don't use the
> apps... not too nice in my mind, but it's been accepted thus far).
>
> Whether you try to do it cross-browser or not, most of your time will be
> spent doing scripting. You can do some truly amazing things that
> will make
> you forget your looking at a web-based app, for the most part.
> You can also
> in many cases get much better performance because the more you do on the
> client (assuming it's not processor-intensive since your talking about an
> interpreted scripting language), the better PERCIEVED performance the app
> can have in many cases. A good example is one application where I sort a
> returned list of search results on the browser as a result of a
> click of a
> column header in an iFrame, which makes it work just like a grid
> in Windows.
> People love that, and so do the server admins since I'm not having the
> server sort search results.
>
> There are absolutely trade-offs you have to be aware of along the
> way, but
> this is the way I'm pulling it off, and the way I think most people are,
> without resorting to plug-ins, Flash, Applets, ActiveX and all
> that sort of
> stuff. Pure HTML and JavaScript (well, as pure as you can get when it's
> IE-only!), and you get what you want without most of the headaches.
>
> The other big thing to consider is that you VERY quickly break "proper"
> application architecture, i.e., separation of layers. It's almost
> unavoidable when your doing something like this unless you are
> exceptionally
> careful. I've done three huge applications along these lines
> over the past
> four years, the first two were pretty poor in terms of
> separation, the third
> is actually very good, but I learned a lot of lessons from the first two,
> and even still there are things done that probably shouldn't be. If this
> isn't your biggest concern (as it's not here since fulfilling client
> requests always trumps proper application development, bad as
> that may be in
> theory!), then it's fine. If your an absolute architecture
> purist (i.e., if
> your a Ph.D, which we have way too many of these days!), then you'll
> probably fight such an approach tooth and nail, and continue to
> either (a)
> have trouble with how your applications work or (b) develop less powerful
> interfaces because your more concerned with the structure of an
> application
> than what it looks like and feels like and works like for an end user.
>
> Now that I've opened a theological nightmare here... ;)
>
> Frank
>
> >From: "Wennberg, Mathias" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> >Reply-To: "Struts Users Mailing List" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> >To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> >Subject: [OT] thick client functionality in the browser
> >Date: Fri, 4 Jun 2004 10:25:41 -0500
> >
> >We're currently running a swing java webstart app but issues
> with clients
> >jvm
> >versions and permissions to install/update programs on their
> workstations
> >are
> >making us look into alternatives.
> >What are people out there using to get thick client functionality in the
> >browser? Ultimately it would work without any plug-ins and on
> all browsers,
> >but it's not necessary as long as it works on IE and doesn't use activeX.
> >
> >I'm also looking for comments and feedback on thinlets and canoo.
> >
> >Thanks.
> >
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