This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Agile Buzz
by James Robertson.
Original Post: CSS and XML in Smalltalk
Feed Title: Cincom Smalltalk Blog - Smalltalk with Rants
Feed URL: http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/rssBlog/rssBlogView.xml
Feed Description: James Robertson comments on Cincom Smalltalk, the Smalltalk development community, and IT trends and issues in general.
Where are we? Enterprise apps are becoming browser based. XML is everywhere, web svcs are here to stay (ed. - adoption is still slow though). SOA is emerging - IBM is focusing WebSphere on this. Few client side solutions - most are on the server.
We are "stuck" with browsers. Inferior scripting languages, black box development. Mozilla is huge - bloated. Browsers are designed for read-only viewing, and only deliver a low quality experience to the end user. Usability and productivity are low - everything requires the page/submit mode. Great Forrester slide showing evolution fo applications from mainframe to client/server - and back down the scale for web apps.
What rich UI options are there?
Flash based UI
Java Applets
ActiveX
Mozilla (XUL)
IE behaviors
Or WithStyle. All Smalltalk objects, XML direct to the UI, completely open and flexible. The inspiration for this? Twoflower browser from Holger. It has a small code base and is open. Is solving a simpler problem (HTML4, no CSS).
Analysts:
"The Web cripples usability. Executable internet technologies will help companies return responsiveness and productivity to Net based apps"
And more like this - the basic message - we need network applications that aren't brain dead. We need the best of both worlds. Nifty - the presentation is XML/CSS presented in WithStyle.
Rich internet apps
Desktop app capabilities
Client side power
Rich UI possibilities
Advantages - more responsive and productive than browser based apps, but with the reach of an internet application. Workflow is simpler, as the state is on the client. No bulk submit for refresh, makes for faster response times. Allows for offline work, P2P, etc. Smalltalk is the perfect choice for all this. WithStyle has been a little more than 12 months with 2 and change people. What's the opportunity? A fresh slate for reinventing the browser paradigm, designed for applications. Makes it possible to make Smalltalk more mainstream. All of the session/state issues go away.
And now a demo from Michael. He's introducing the WebUI from WithStyle. Rich internet app, completely open to extension. Styling with CSS is only a start - integrating with Pollock, XForms, advanced widgets. One goal - complete GUI UI's that are skinnable with CSS. Why CSS? It's a powerful layout language influenced by traditional publishing. Separates presentation/content. For an example of this - see CSS ZenGarden. What examples? An example web browser, development tools, an XML editor, and an XML powerpoint replacement (being used in this talk). For all this:
Developer program starting soon - sign up at the show (NDA)
Nightly releases began 20 February 2004
What does the example browser support? Charsets, scripting, XML Events, better layout and CSS support, XML Schema, DXML (DHTML), XSLT, Basic Tables, Basic Embedded Widgets, Editing, moving to Pollock, thin client. Over 600 tests, 5200 methods with around 35k code. Now the demo - he's showing off WithStyle showing http://www.w3.org. Next, CSS ZenGarden. Well, we got the typical demo MNU there :) Now on to editing. The XML editor is a WYSIWYG editor - very impressive. Next demo - creating a slide presentation directly - add a class, add some xml and html in methods - and we can launch it. This part you really had to be here for - it's all demo code being written on the fly. Very cool demos.
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