Hello,
Edd Dumbill (of O'Reilly XML.com fame) has written
up a blog story titled "What next for GNOME's user
interface?" that offers insight and options on how the
Free World can respond to Microsoft's upcoming
all-in-one Windows-only next-gen
XHTML3/XUL3/SVG3/CSS3/PDF3 markup language.
Edd writes about [W3C] XForms:
The web is on its way out for UI-based applications.
What users need is a tool suited for the job, not a
crippled interface shoehorned into a browser. XForms
is not going to save the day here: it will improve the
situation for web-based data collection, but it won't
keep large scale client projects inside the browser.
Edd writes about Glade:
The Glade XML-based UI designer and toolkit for
GTK+ applications is a great piece of work. The GNOME
world has reaped considerable advantage from using it.
But it's not simple to use.
...
For Glade to meet the challenge we at least need to
(a) create a simple XML format that brings much more
to the party, and (b) enable scripting.
Edd writes about [Mozilla] XUL:
XUL is the user interface language used in the
Mozilla project. There are other implementations, but
Mozilla is the only realistic game in town.
...
If we were to back XUL for a next generation of
GNOME UI, what would need to happen? First and
foremost would be a political and social change to get
more dialogue going between Mozilla and GNOME.
Secondly, there'd need to be a way to ensure a good
native GNOME look and feel and interoperability.
Thirdly, it would need to be extensible enough to use
the richer palette of widgets GNOME offers. Fourthly,
Mozilla needs to get SVG support done to bring richer
graphics into the UI.
I like XUL, I really do. But I worry that the drag
factor is too large to bring XUL up to GNOME's level
of expressivity, and GNOME doesn't want to throw away
what it's got.
Edd writes about HTML, SVG, XML, CSS:
This is more of a grab-bag solution for now.
Various projects have used and are using HTML for
rapid UI development.
...
So this route is a little more experimental: it
won't bring a rapid response but there's good work
that could be done, especially in the more
presentation-oriented aspect of UI.
Full story @
http://usefulinc.com/edd/blog/contents/2004/03/03-gnomeui/read
Let us know what you think about Edd's analysis and
join the discussion on xul-talk.
To kick off the discussion I've posted Miguel de
Icaza's (Mono Chief) respone to Edd's story.
- Gerald
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