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Google urges Web adoption of vector graphics | Deep Tech - CNET News
Interesting discussion about SVG, and the push Google is making with their SVG Conference.
excerpt: Vector graphics describe imagery mathematically with lines, curves, shapes, and color values rather than the grid of colored pixels used by bitmapped file formats such as JPEG or GIF widely used on the Web today. Where appropriate, such as with corporate logos but not photographs, vector graphics bring smaller file sizes and better resizing flexibility. That's good for faster downloads and use on varying screen sizes.
Boks - A Visual Grid Editor - TOKI WOKI.
Boks is an AIR application (so it works on Windows, Mac and Linux) that provides a User Interface for Blueprint CSS's framework. It's been designed for those who think the Grid System is good but never really took the time to give it love.
It handles grid configuration, baseline rhythm pimpin', CSS (with or without compression) and grid.png export, HTML layout and much more goodie-goodie!
Design for Developers: Interactivity, animations, and AJAX
Awesome commentary in the must read category. JC nails it; starting with "layout"! ....... "We were both part of the same team and he was creating some UI elements that I was to wire up. As I sat there (in awe) watching him work I realized that much of his considerable skill was rooted in fundamentals not unlike the art of programming. Of course, there are design skills that are intuitive that can't be "learned." But, that can also be said of the logical clarity found in a really elegant data model or a brilliant inheritance tree. I am certainly no designer, but I have observed the more creative among us for several years and have gained some insight into their world. In this article I'll share some basic principles that can help raise your design acumen and improve the experience of your users...... "
Layout
I'd like to attack my goal of imparting design wisdom by breaking the topic into four buckets. The first is layout.
The Grand Convergence: Web + RIA + Widgets + Client/Server
Excellent overview of where applications are going. Richard Monson-Haefel, (whom i met at the 2008 Web 2.0 Conference) explains the convergence of four emerging application models: Web Clients (Browsers), RiA Clients, Client/Server, and Widget Engines. He comes up with a convergence point called "Fit Client", offering Adobe Air as the leading example. Richard walks through each application model, discussing limitations and advantages. Good stuff, especially this comment:
"The widget engine is really a wonderful architecture that gives you the power of the desktop (via the widget engine) and the management of the Web (via widget downloads). Widget engines can out-perform RIA solutions and they can store larger data sets.
The limitation of Widget engines is not in their architecture, it is that they have been designed for applications with fairly weak capabilities compared to client/server. Widgets tend to be single-purpose applications with limited access to the native operating system. That said, the widget architecture itself - the separation of the platform from the applications - is important. It makes it possible to create applications (widgets) that are portable across operating systems and are packaged for easy download and installation. "
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he architecture of the Widget engine divides the client technology into two parts, the engine and the widgets. The widget engine is usually a pretty large download.
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Add Sticky NoteThe widget engine is really a wonderful architecture that gives you the power of the desktop (via the widget engine) and the management of the Web (via widget downloads). Widget engines can out-perform RIA solutions and they can store larger data sets.
- Interesting insight! Obviously Google Chrome and the entire WebKit community has concentrated on this advantage. Web reach combined with RiA - C/S local power. - on 2008-11-06
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The Silverlight RiA Platform : Replacing the desktop from the cloud
In the future application developers won't care what desktop operating system you use, they will only care which Fit Client platform is the most pervasive. This is what Adobe AIR, Microsoft Silverlight, Google Gears and Curl are fighting for. Nothing short of the future of desktop and RIA development.
Microsoft brings with it a huge ecosystem of .NET developers - potentially millions of developers already skilled in WPF, XAML and C#. That's a pretty scary for others in the Fit Client arena.
Right now the future of the desktop is completely open. Anyone with enough clout could win the desktop - effectively usurping Microsoft Windows dominate position.
CSS Tutorials @ SitePoint
List of CSS articles and tutorials at SitePoint. Includes Adobe AiR and WebKit implementations.
The Next-Gen Web: HTML5 - Will We Ever See A Real Standard?
"...some browsers and plug-ins were adopting storage-related API’s that are a part of the new HTML5 draft specification. While Gears, Opera and Webkit have implemented structured storage API’s, the remainder of the HTML5 spec currently remains mostly unimplemented and also in a state of flux. HTML5 is a super-sized effort to bring all the browsers under a single, standard markup language and set of API’s - but with Microsoft, Adobe and others racing ahead with their own next-gen web technologies, will we ever see a real HTML5 standard?"
This article was posted in August of 2008, before the surprise release of the WebKit based "Google Chrome" .... the WebKit RiA alternative to Adobe AiR and Microsoft Silverlight
SitePen Blog » Inside the Dojo Toolbox
Building the Dojo Toolbox allowed us to dive into Adobe® AIR™, and to create a blended toolchain of JavaScript, PHP, Python and Rhino (JavaScript on the Java Virtual Machine) for developing an amazing desktop application using open web technologies.
One of the most noticeable things you’ll see when moving from typical browser-based development to AIR is that you only have one browser to worry about. Dojo does a great job of masking browser JavaScript API differences, but there are still enough differences in CSS and other aspects of application development that it is somewhat refreshing to only have one platform to develop again. Also, since AIR includes WebKit, it has one of the fastest JavaScript implementations around and offers numerous useful experimental CSS properties that you can use in the AIR context. Apple has invested a lot in WebKit development, and AIR will naturally inherit those benefits when they next upgrade the included WebKit.
InternetNews Realtime IT News - The Next Wave in Collaborative Software
RiA is making the leap from web design to web application by first reinventing the end users "workspace-workgroup" experience.
"... The winds of change are blowing through collaborative software, and they're blowing pretty hard. Here at the Office 2.0 conference, Adobe Systems and Joblogs previewed their approaches, which are strikingly similar.
They both offer real time collaboration. Both use mash-ups and provide ease of use well beyond today's collaborative systems, which Joblogs founder Steve Ireland described as "workspace 1.0."
Both are aimed at the enterprise and seek to provide context around the user's workspace, doing mash-ups (define) of contact databases, e-mail, calendars, photos, and task lists, although Joblogs' application also offers blogs.
Google Chrome: Bad news for Adobe « counternotions
"What’s good for the Internet is good for Google, and the company says its strategic proposition for the newly introduced Chrome browser is: a better platform is needed to deliver a new generation of online applications......."
This is one of the best explanations of why Google had to do Chrome i've seen thus far. Kontra also provided some excellent coverage concerning the Future of the Web in a two part article previously published. Here he nails the RiA space, comparing Google Chrome, Apollo (Adobe AiR/Flex/Flash) and Microsoft Silverlight.
Chrome is clearly an Open Web play. Apollo and Sivlerlight are proprietary bound in some way. Although it must be said that Apollo implements the SAME WebKit layout engine / WebKit docuemtn model as Google Chrome, Apple Safari-iPhone, Nokia, RiM and the Iris "Smart Phone" browser.
The WebKit model is based on advanced HTML, CSS, SVG and JavaScript. Where Adobe goes proprietary is in replacing SVG with the proprietary SWF. The differences between JavaScript and ActionScript are inconsequential to me, especially given the problems at Ecma.
One other point not covered by Kontra is the fact that Apollo and Silverlight can run as either browser plugins or standalone runtimes. Wha tthey can't do though is run as sufing browsers. They are clearly for Web Applications.
Chome on the other hand re-invents the browser to handle both surfing mode AND RiA. Plus, a Chrome RiA can also run as a plugin in other browsers (Opera and FireFox). Very cool.
The last point is that i wouldn't totally discount Apple RiA. They too use WebKit. The differnece is tha tApple uses the SquirrelFish JavaScript JiT with the SproutCore-Cocoa developers framework. This approach is designed to bridge the gap between the OSX desktop/server Cocoa API, and the WebKit-SproutCore API.
Chrome uses the V8 JiT. And Adobe uses Tamarin to compile JavaScript-ActionScript. Tamarin was donated to the Mozilla community.
If there is anythin that will slow down Apple and Google WebKit implementations,
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Add Sticky NoteAgree with much of what Kontra said and disagree with many who mentioned alternatives to JavaScript/Chrome. The main, simplest reason Adobe will be in a losing fight in terms of web platform? The Big Two - Google and Microsoft - will never make themselves dependent on or promote Adobe platform and strategy.
- Excellent comment supporting Kontra's prescient point of view. Web Applications are going to divide into two camps. One camp will be that of Web 1.0 - Web 2.0 "designers" moving to light weight RiA. This is very much a "consumer Web" orientation. The other camp will be that of the "business Web", where legacy client/server applicaitons will be re-written to RiA-SaaS-Cloud computing models. Here, Microsoft has an extreme advantage. MSDN developers have spent near 20 years building "client/server" related services around the client side MSOffice-Outlook-Access anchor. Today it's hard to think of client/server without also having to think MSOffice. Even though it can and will be argued that many client/server applicaitons have migrated to some sort of WebStack portal-CMS footing using J2EE. - on 2008-09-08
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Add Sticky NoteLuis, I think that’s already in play with HTML5. As I pointed out in Runtime wars (2): Apple’s answer to Flash, Silverlight and JavaFX, Apple and WHATWG are firmly progressing along those lines. Canvas is at the center of it. The glue language for all this, JavaScript, is getting a potent shot in the arm. The graphics layer, at the level of SVG, needs more work. And so on.
- I agree with Kontra that SVG is hurting the WebKit gang. But i would also point to the lack of a XUL like alternative to Microsoft XAML as another problem tha tmus tbe overcome. - on 2008-09-08
AIR, Java, and Robots - InsideRIA
"The AIR "robot" application connects to a Java backend that controls the robot through Mindstorm's public Java api, and Java and AIR are then glued together through an open source technology called Merapi. Merapi is an open-source project for connecting AIR and Java run by Adam Flater, and is sure to have an exciting future."
This is an excellent example of how many applications are using Adobe AiR. Java is used on the backend with the sophisticated Flash GUI on the front
Chrome's JavaScript poses challenge to Silverlight | Tech News on ZDNet
"The biggest rival for Microsoft's next-generation Silverlight web technology will be JavaScript, not Adobe's ubiquitous Flash, according to experts speaking at Microsoft's TechEd conference in Sydney on Friday. "
Good article capturing Microsoft's early response to Google Chrome. Not surprisingly they try to pit Chrome against Adobe AiR, and argue that Chrome is a bigger threat to Microsot's XAML-Silverlight RiA than Adobe Flash (AiR).
I posted a comment to this article, <a href="http://talkback.zdnet.com/5208-9595-0.html?forumID=1&threadID=51613&messageID=970681&start=0">Divide and Conquer"</a>.
I’m johnny » Adobe technology platform ActionScript reference for RIA development (download)
This guide provides a reference for all native ActionScript APIs for the Adobe technology platform runtimes, Adobe
Flash Player and Adobe AIR, as well as the Flex framework APIs.
Some Perspective On Browser Market Share | Continuing Intermittent Incoherency
One of the comments to this post really caught my eye: ...... "Flash has always had better rendering consistency across platforms. However, HTML is much easier to build.
I always wondered why someone (Adobe?) doesn’t build a HTML/CSS/JS to Flash bridge. Sort of like sIfr but for the whole page. I really thought AIR could be that bridge. Write once, and render anywhere. :) ......... "
The thing is, the Adobe AiR runtime implements the WebKit layout engine. Whcih means WebKit documents based on HTML/CSS/JS should render just fine.
The real question will be how Adobe AiR handles the EcmaScript mess! Will they go with the ActionSript 3 version of JS - the one that is optimised for Tamarin? Or will they scale back to the MIcrosoft-Yahoo crippled version of official EcmaScript? My guess is that they push forward with ActiveScript 3 and try to convince WebKit and Mozilla groups to carry the open sourced Tamarin JiT. That would protect AiR developers as well as those who are seriously concerned about the future of the open web going forward.
- I left a comment here that Alex didn't quite agree with :) Well, he's a Dojo guy, and i like WebKit. No wonder. - garyedwards on 2008-09-13
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Flash has always had better rendering consistency across platforms. However, HTML is much easier to build.
I always wondered why someone (Adobe?) doesn’t build a HTML/CSS/JS to Flash bridge. Sort of like sIfr but for the whole page. I really thought AIR could be that bridge. Write once, and render anywhere.
Flash Wars: Adobe Fights for AIR with the Open Screen Project [Part 3 of 3] | AppleInsider
Part two of the Prince McClean Adobe-Flash history. Excellent history involves Adobe SVG, Microsoft VmL-XAML-Silverlight, Apple WebKit, Sun (Java) as they battle for dominance over web applications and the future of the Web itself.
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Two areas where Flash can offer real value is in displaying and packaging video on the web, and in serving as a Java replacement for developing applets. Here's a look at how Adobe is working to defend its strengths in the face of competition, and how its efforts to open the Flash specification in the Open Screen Project play into these efforts.
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proprietary FLV video container format
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WebKit Meta: A new standard for in-game web content | Alp Toker
As many know, i've moved all my attention to WebKit and thw webkit "fixed/flow" document model as an alternative to Microsoft's proprietary XAML "fixed/flow". Webkit is the default layout for iPhone, Safari and the Adobe RIA runtime (Flex/Flash/AiR/Acrobat). It's just a short hop from WebKit to VisualForce Pages, the default document model for SalesForce.com developers. The Meta announcement further demonstrates how powerful the WebKit design is. It's will be worthwhile keepign an eye on the Meta JavaScript SDK-Runtime as a nice addition to WebKit. Good stuff!
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Meta, a brand new WebKit port suited to embedding in OpenGL and 3D applications. The work is being driven by Linden Lab, who are eagerly investigating WebKit for use in Second Life.
While producing Meta we’ve paid great attention to resolving the technical and practical limitations encountered with other web content engines.
WebKit, AJAX and ARAX | Readers Welcome ARAX and More: Darryl Taft follow-up zdnet
Darryl Taft writes a follow up article covering the comments to his original AJAX-ARAX ruby on rails MS-iron python story
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A commenter on the ARAX article on eWEEK's site named Gary Edwards said,
"It seems to me that Adobe and Microsoft are using the browser plug-in
model as a distribution channel for their proprietary run-time engines. Or should
we call them VMs [virtual machines]?"The easiest way for Web developers to sidestep problematic browser
wars, and still be able to push the envelope of the interactive Web, may well
be to write to a universal run-time plug-in like Adobe AIR
or Microsoft Silverlight. IMHO, the 'browser' quickly fades away once this
direct development sets in."Moreover, Edwards said, "Although there are many ways to slice this
discussion, it might be useful to compare Adobe RIA [Rich Internet
Applications] and Microsoft Silverlight RIA in terms of Web-ready, highly
interactive documents. The Adobe RIA story is quite different from that of
Silverlight. Both however exploit the shortcomings of browsers; shortcomings
that are in large part, I think, due to the disconnect the browser community
has had with the W3C [World Wide Web Consortium]. The W3C forked off the HTML-CSS
[Cascading Style Sheets] path, putting the bulk of their attention into XML,
RDF and the Semantic Web. The Web developer community stayed the course, pushing
the HTML-CSS envelope with JavaScript and
some rather stunning CSS magic."Adobe seems to have picked up the HTML-CSS-JavaScript
trail with a Microsoft innovation to take advantage of browser cache, DHTML
(Dynamic HTML). DHTML morphs into AJAX,
(which [is] so wild as to have difficulty scaling). And AJAX
gets tamed by an Adobe-Apple sponsored WebKit."
Running Beyond the Browser | Move Over AJAX, ARAX is Here - Darryl Taft of eWeek
Darryl Taft posts an interesting question concerning running Ruby in a browser, and Microsoft's Silverlight proposal to do that with ARAX. I think he misses the larger context of the rise of RIA, and the wane of AJAX.
In particular, he misses the significance of two important RIA aspects: The Adobe RIA runs on the WebKit layout engine and document model. Microsoft RIA (Silverlight) runs on XAML "fixed/flow".
XAML "fixed/flow" is in effect, the web ready representation of MSOffice-OOXML. And Silverlight the Windows Presentation Foundation layer gone portable.
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Because the Adobe AIR run-time is based on WebKit layout, WebKit documents can hit on all cylinders across any browser able to implement the AIR plug-in. Meaning, web developers and web content providers need only target the WebKit document model to attain the interactive access ubiquity all seek. Very cool. Let me also add that the WebKit HTML-CSS-DOM-Javascript model is capable of "fixed/flow" representation. I'll explain the importance of "fixed/flow" un momento, but think about how iPhone renders a web page and you'll understand the "flow" side of this equation.
AJAX, AIR, RIA, Adobe Getting It, David Mendels and “Rich Internet Apps: How We Live Now” | James Governor’s Monkchips »
Blog from James Governor covers an exchange with Adobe's David Mendels concerning the transition from the static document centric Web 1.0, to the dynamic application platform we know today as the Web 2.0. David discusses the transition from DHTML to AJAX to RIA. David and his group at Adobe witnessed the transition and coined the phrase RIA - Rich Internet Application, to describe this incredible transition. No mention of WebKit as an important aspect enabling the interactive - dynamic document model behind Adobe RIA.
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What we saw them do was create a single screen application with rich interactivity on the client, but still all of the benefits of being a web based application (nothing to install, back end connectivity for inventory and other data using XML, use of client side media/animation to guide the user, reachable through any browser, etc.) We really looked at this as the best of web applications and the best of desktop applications: rich connectivity, platform independence, no install, lightweight as well as rich client side logic and interactivity, ability to integrate rich media and communications. But we dropped the baggage of the page based metaphor that basically required a page refresh for everything and got beyond the layout/graphics/media constraints of HTML.
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