Re: Widgets Re: ISSUE-237 (Define Mobile Web Applications)

On 24 Feb 2008, at 17:15, Sean Owen wrote:

>
> On Sun, Feb 24, 2008 at 11:53 AM, Charles McCathieNevile
> <chaals@opera.com> wrote:
>>  The point of standardising it was that it is implemented in  
>> practice.
>>  Opera, Apple, Nokia and others ship this to phones, it's  
>> available for Wii
>>  and various flavours of desktop such as opera (all desktop OS),  
>> MacOS,
>>  iPhone, and there are various systems that embed widgets into a web
>>  application you can use, from providers like Google and AOL.
>
> ... etc., but we're not a widget working group per se, irrespective of
> the merits of it, and I'm sure it's a good thing.

Let's just look at widgets as Web pages with extra functional bits.  
By including them, we're future proofing our BPs so they're not  
outdated in the very near future. Naturally we need to keep time and  
cost in mind to ensure we don't spend a disproportionate amount of  
time working on stuff that will never be used.

>>  I think the technology is clearly a best practice for delivering
>>  applications - you are basically reducing the transfer from the  
>> entire
>>  application to just the changing bits. Since widgets have persistent
>>  client-side storage, you can use them for real stuff like mail
>>  applications or the fairly common feed readers as well as the  
>> apparently
>>  ubiquitous stock tickers, clocks, weather information (if you are  
>> mobile,
>>  why not just look up to find out the weather?).
>
> Sure, but I think you are saying it is not yet practice even. Maybe it
> will be -- it's even likely. BP3? sure, maybe so.

It is becoming standard practice very quickly. Developers are using  
widgets more and more every day. Personally, I dislike widgets where  
simple code would have done the job. So anything we can do to provide  
some guidance on how to do this stuff properly has got to be good.
>
> Maybe this does deserve discussion. Our charter says that BPs are
> about codifying current best practices for applying existing web
> standards most effectively. This widget technology would not fall into
> the category of existing web standards. Even mentioning XHTML 1.1 in
> BP1 ended up being too optimistic.
>
> BP1 put together the knowledge gathered over WAP's first, what, 7
> years of slow evolution? We're now talking about writing BPs for
> devices that have been out for a year, maybe two. I admit I think it's
> a little early, but not entirely premature. The more-capable mobile
> platform we're thinking of is getting close to a desktop browser,
> leaving less mobile-specific to talk about. There may not be 60 new
> BPs. But we can't be tempted to write about things that might be a
> good idea later, it's not in our remit.

I agree. There are a few things however, such as widgets, that we  
need to at least keep in mind. Developers are using them more and  
more these days. The speed at which this particular area is evolving  
is far greater than anything we've seen in the past (including  
anything WAP related). A blog is a perfect example. Almost every blog  
has a widget of some kind. There are millions of blogs on the Web.

Paul

Received on Monday, 25 February 2008 20:14:37 UTC