Re: [Dynapi-Dev] Directions in 2001 - IDE, loadpanel

[Dan S. <dy...@fu...>]

I had written some code that did the communication by layer src-ing.  I haven't updated it for the latest dynapi2.  It was a nice system except that it was extremely unstable, kept crashing Netscape.  Although I am hopeful if I rewrite a portion of it I could probably get it to a more stable state.  The inline creation system has helped stabilize Netscape by an enormous amount, and I think a layer communication scheme could work decently now.

I called it ServerTask, and was thinking of putting together a package of code an releasing it separate from the DynAPI (a previous version was distributed with the dynapi2 before the move to SourceForge).

I don't see the necessity to use XML because usually it's just simple strings that need to be passed back and forth, it's so easy to do a direct converstion into Perl or PHP variables that it seems unecessary to wrap it all in xml tags.  I wrote a quick little piece of code to translate from JS data (including 1D arrays) to a URI encoded string - I called it a ServerTaskData object.  Once you submit the information the serverside script can work with the information and return a JavaScript variable as it's result.

To pass large amounts of information a frames based system is by far the most simplistic to implement because all the tools are built into the browser.  As you mentioned the back button is toast when using frames, but that is a minor tradeoff for the added functionality.  I have used this before and it worked consistantly.

Dan

On Wed, Jan 03, 2001 at 12:39:57PM -0500, Al Byers wrote:
> Hello All,
> 
> I have noticed some talk about using loadpanel in conjunction with
> forms. This is an area of great interest to me. Automating the
> generation of forms and their interaction with the host is the crux of
> an integrated development environment (IDE). I see IDE as being the
> biggest current open niche in the open source arena and DynAPI could
> play a huge part if there were such an effort to develop one.
> 
> I think the key to a successful IDE will be the incorporation of XML
> technology - it will strike a responsive chord with the industry and it
> solves some real problems (see below). Over the past couple of years
> Local Square has developed a client/server environment in which XML is
> passed to and from  browser forms via XML (we also can send HTML). I
> have developed a lightweight psuedo-XML parser in Javascript. We have
> tools to generate the necessary forms and scripts from a database table
> definition. The system is designed to be distributed - using Apache/HTTP
> as the transport and Perl as the scripting language. It is highly
> object-oriented - both in Perl and Javascript.
> 
> DynApi is playing a key role in this system in two important ways:
> 1) The use of DynApi widgets in conjunction with forms, can give the
> processing of data a lot of the amenities that normally would be
> associated with desktop or Java apps. Things like a responsive menu,
> popup boxes for selections and help, etc. The fact that data is kept on
> the client also improves the response time.
> 
> 2) We are currently using DynApi(1) to implement a drag and drop
> environment for laying out web pages. This is for e-commerce, but it
> could have lots of other uses. Because of the varied nature of the data
> structure for pages built this way (they would have special embedded
> "objects"), XML is the best vehicle for transmitting and storing this
> data. And it leaves us in a position to take advantage of the
> forthcoming XSLT work to render the XML.
> 
> There is also a third area - using loadpanel to transmit the data. We
> have struggled with this problem - having used 1) a hidden frame to do
> the transmission (it is fragile and messes up the expected operation of
> the "Back" key), 2) the precursor to loadpanel (it is also fragile and
> suffers from a limitation on the size of data that can be uploaded and
> 3) urlPipe, a Java applet developed at www.kisai.com (they don't seem to
> be there anymore?) (it seemed to work great except for some special
> problems that only affected our work. But no source code). Note that the
> folks at allaire.com seem to be interested in this use of XML (they have
> a protocol called WDDX ) and I have seen urlPipe mentioned there.
> 
> Our company has toyed with the idea of making our work open source. If
> anyone is interested in this type of project, please respond here or to
> me directly so that I have something to take to our management. The
> beauty of such an endeavor is that when we are done, instead of being
> able to share widgets with which we build apps, we will be able to share
> complete and compatible applications - moving DynApi into the ASP arena.
> 
> -Al
> 
> --
> Al Byers
> Local Square, Inc.
> 826 N. Augusta St.
> Staunton, VA 24401
> 540.213.0500
> www.localsquare.com
> by...@lo...
> 
> 
> 
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