On 17 Sep 2010, at 01:30, Marcos Caceres wrote: > Hi Nathan, > >> There are many applications that are currently stuck using a server >> because there is no clear path to deploying 100% client side >> applications, examples include micro-blogging clients, note/task-pads, >> image editors, contact managers, cms/blogging software (think admin), >> well, any application which doesn't natively need a server and where >> client side persistence/caching more than suits, or where the >> data/api(s) being used within the application are exposed via HTTP (that >> covers almost every "web app" I can think of). > > Some applications are happy to live on the server. Others can be written as native apps. And then some can be written as W3C widgets, sure (also, have you tried Opera Unite? it's a server in the browser and does all the cool things you mentioned above - and uses widgets to do it!). > > The problem is not a standards one, I think. It's a problem that you think other browser vendors have not bought into the whole widgets thing. Opera supports W3C widgets, as do many other browser vendors. Maybe you should look a little beyond the big browser vendors to "the long tail" - you will find many companies actually implementing W3C widgets (did you know WinMobile 6.5, Blackberry, Samsung, Nokia, etc. all do W3C widgets? that list is growing little by little every day). That's pretty cool, I think! > > Despite what you might think, getting only big browser vendors is not always the aim of stuff that is done at the W3C. We make stuff for everyone to use and innovate on. Who knows! maybe the next Big Company will be built on W3C Widgets. The nice thing about W3C Widgets is it gives you the flexibility to work in all kinds of ways. So I work on Apache Wookie[1] which implements W3C Widgets for web widgets served up using an application server. But you can take the same Widget out of Wookie and install it in a Samsung or a Blackberry to run direct on the device. Or use it in a desktop application like Widgeon. So you can offer users a lot of choices. (Soon I'll be working on porting our W3C Widgets parser[2] to run in interactive whiteboards, which I'm pretty sure wasn't in our list of UCs!) [1] http://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/WOOKIE/ [2] http://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/WOOKIE/Using+Wookie%27s+W3C+Widget+Parser+in+other+Applications
Received on Friday, 17 September 2010 09:07:15 UTC