[whatwg] Loading custom XML UI definitions from an external file

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| At 09:07 AM 6/9/2004, Preston St. Pierre wrote:
|
|> > Has anyone experimented with loading an XML file containing custom
|> > user interface definitions from an external XML file using JavaScript,
|> > then parsing that file and using it to create the interface itself
|> > using the HTML DOM? Kind of like a client-side XUL implementation. The
|> > XML document containing the XUL (or similar interface language) would
|> > be loaded using XMLHTTP (IE or Mozilla version).

I've used the mechanism you're describing to store user preferences for
an application interface... for example, a list of what "windows" were
open be default, where they're positioned on the screen, basically all
of the options that were configurable in a certain web application.

I've also used this mechanism as a client-side access control list... a
listing of what features and options are available.  We still did a
server-side authentication before delivering the result, but this
contained enough information for the client-side to pre-populate a
number of interface elements.

The main issue I ran into initially was writing a generic enough script
to accomodate any xml structure.  If JavaScript adds xml as a native
data format (which is expected), this process would have been more
straighforward.

Regarding the requirement of JavaScript, this application would have
been useless without JavaScript.  The environment was very controlled...
users were required to have IE6 (only because its interaction with the
Adobe SVG plugin was far better than mozilla at the time), Adobe SVG
plugin version 3, and JavaScript enabled, which was ok as it was more of
an intranet application for a specific audience than an end user
application.

- --
Dylan Schiemann
http://www.sitepen.com/
http://www.dylanschiemann.com/
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Received on Wednesday, 9 June 2004 10:45:01 UTC