On Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 06:37:50PM -0800, Bruce Atherton wrote:
> i) Server controlled UI for conforming clients
>
> It would be awfully nice if, right from the beginning, support was provided
> for servers to have some control over the user interfaces of the clients.
> This way, as each group customized their source code management system to
> support their particular view of the world, no matter how controlled or how
> lax, the clients could automatically adapt to provide the right user
> interface. This might mean that people filling different roles would see
> completely different user interfaces.
>
> The current standard way to do this kind of server-controlled user
> interface right now is through HTML Forms, but of course they are not
> nearly rich enough to provide a complete user interface. I see three
> possible contenders, each with their own flaws:
>
> 1) XUL - seems to be oriented almost exclusively at web browsers.
> Still once, DeltaV becomes integrated into Mozilla XUL may allow Mozilla to
> become a versioning client.
>
> 2) UIML - the most general purpose solution, but it seems to be so
> abstract as to provide no actual user interface elements that are usable at
> this time. Perhaps that will change over time.
Take it from someone who has worked with UIML (see
kuimlrenderer.sourceforge.net), UIML is not supported well enough yet, and the
uiml.org group seems to to implement the ones they have. I once thought it a
very promising tech(and who knows, it may one day be so), but the spec is so
abstract, it makes it hard for anyone to actually implement a conforming
renderer. It is something that could be kept in mind though.
>
> 3) XForms - this is the option that seems to show the most promise,
> although the standard is still developing.
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Kevin Pilch-Bisson http://www.pilch-bisson.net
"Historically speaking, the presences of wheels in Unix
has never precluded their reinvention." - Larry Wall
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Received on Sat Oct 21 14:36:23 2006