GUIs - ruby on rails, rico

[bryan rasmussen]

xmlhttp is an object included with most modern browsers which allows a
scripting engine implemented in the browser to make asynchronous http
gets, posts etc. it has the name xmlhttp because microsoft who came up
with it evidently envisioned it for sending around xml.
xmlhttp has nothing to do with the gui, the gui has to be coded. on
the other hand XUL is browser specific.

One area where the cross, my understanding is that Google for some of
their dynamic web applications have a transformation server side of
XUL to dynamic html for IE etc. and deliver just XUL to Netscape,
Mozilla etc. however this is a partially remembered bit of web trivia
so don't hold me to it.

On 9/19/05, Martin Carlson <martin@REDACTED> wrote:
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> I haven't had a close look at this XMLHTTP, but to me it
> don't sound to far from XUL (http://www.xulplanet.com).
> Where you use the mozilla chrome engine to render a gui.
> The "thing" is that you can either render XUL pages
> (much like html pages) remotely in a sandbox mode or
> you can install them ontop of mozilla as a extention,
> which infact run as a "normal" application i.e. thunderbird
> or firefox.
> 
> The XUL rendering works in pretty much the same way where
> you have a horrible XML file and thus a DOM tree that you can
> manipulat with java scripts. Thus, using the XmlHttpRequest to
> communicate with the server can make the gui appear interactive
> where all communication takes place in the background as POST and
> GET requests to the server.
> 
> Martin
> 
> On Mon, 19 Sep 2005, Joe Armstrong (AL/EAB) wrote:
> 
> >
> > It's even better than I thought. The Canvas widget *is* in
> > Firefox 1.5 beta 1 and runs out of the box!!!
> >
> > Strangely there are very few working examples on the net to show how the
> > canvas is used.
> >
> > This is amazing - up to now it has been difficult to direct display vector graphics
> > on the web - with the canvas widget this is easy.
> >
> > Wow
> >
> > /Joe
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: owner-erlang-questions@REDACTED
> >> [mailto:owner-erlang-questions@REDACTED]On Behalf Of Joe Armstrong
> >> (AL/EAB)
> >> Sent: den 19 september 2005 11:22
> >> To: erlang-questions
> >> Subject: GUIs - ruby on rails, rico
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> It seems like my quest for a GUI is almost over.
> >>
> >> Klacke had pointed me at XMLHTTP but I just didn't get it (dumbo) -
> >>
> >> Then I hacked a bit and - WOW. Firstly XMLHTTP is nothing
> >> about XML - it's just allows
> >> a light weight RPC to made from within a web page. So you
> >> connect a bit
> >> of JavaScript to an event - this JavaScript RPCs a server,
> >> the server replies with
> >> a string that the JavaScript interprets (any old string - not
> >> necessarily XML)
> >> and the JavaScript modifies the web page.
> >>
> >> The last bit (the JavaScript modifies the web page) is the
> >> tricky bit - to
> >> do this you need to use the DOM - which is (uuugh) painful.
> >>
> >> Fortunately there are libraries to do this - ruby on rails
> >> uses prototype.js to do this
> >> http://prototype.conio.net/ And Tobbe has written a library
> >> (jungerl/lib/js) to take to prototype.js
> >>
> >> Also of interest is rico http://openrico.org/rico/home.page
> >> (especially their innerHTML
> >> demo) (see
> >> http://openrico.org/rico/demos.page?demo=ricoAjaxInnerHTML.html)
> >>
> >> As far as I can see one could make a pretty snazzy GUI in a
> >> web brower with
> >>
> >>      - a local HTTP server (yaws)
> >>      - XMLHTTP and
> >>      - rico or prototype.js
> >>
> >> Also in the pipeline is an HTML extension <canvas> which has
> >> made it to
> >> safari and mozilla - this is looking good.
> >>
> >> What would be even nicer would be a port of the konfabulator to linux
> >> http://www.konfabulator.com/ - since this (I think) would
> >> solve all my GUI problems.
> >>
> >> This technology is about to explode - so yaws should be well placed -
> >> this means that servers are going to be handling a lot of
> >> lightweight RPCs
> >>
> >> So go hack
> >>
> >> /Joe
> >>
> >>
> >
> 
>