First, realize that this was simply a demonstration of the sort of thing that's possible having a web services API to iNquiry. I hadn't really considered this to be something "beefy" and broadly capable, but I suppose it could turn into that. Second, I sort of cheated in the development of this app, making it rather Pise-centric. I ported Catherine Leotondal's PiseParser to ObjC and used it to parse Pise XML descriptions of the applications being served by iNquiry's web interface. The UI and client-side web service calls are generated from these XML. {Actually we do the same sort of thing in reverse on the server side to make the web services.} So I guess, with a Pise description of MOBY, EBI, eUtils, you could get these to work with zero development (apart from writing the XML). A more portable development solution might have been to generate the UI and client-side web service calls from a WSDL. Version 2.0. Bill On May 25, 2005, at 12:00 PM, bioclusters-request at bioinformatics.org wrote: > Hi Bill, > > I havent had a chance to play with this yet but how hard would it be > to add in support for other online bioinformatic web services such as > MOBY, EBI, eUtils, etc? I've been looking at Automator and the > webservice action they provide but its going to be a little clunky > and hard to pull togther in such a nice interface like XTE has. > Obviously this might conflict with your plans for iNquiry as users > could access these services elsewhere and not necessarily need their > own xserve system in the basement. Alternatively it might get them > hooked on this type of approach and encourage them to get their own > servers to speed their analyses up. > > The other potentially cool thing to do would be to use something like > this as a front end for a Taverna workflow - that way you (or others) > could use Taverna to create the workflows between the other web > services (non-iNquiry based),then use XTE or an automator action to > kick it off and let the taverna workflow engine do its thing behind > the scenes. Taverna is in need of a user friendly front end and > putting something that is *easy to use* on people's desktops would be > a great next step and widen your audience beyond iNquiry-based users. > > Great to see you guys playing with this technology and getting > something tangible out there so fast! :) > > Simon. > > > On May 23, 2005, at 1:46 PM, William Van Etten wrote: > > > >> iNquiryXTE (X Tiger Edition) is a FREE and open source Mac OS X >> Desktop application that functions both as a web services client to >> an iNquiry enabled Apple Workgroup Cluster and an Automator action >> generator. >> >> Take a look, kick the tires, contribute to the code. >> >> http://www.bioteam.net/inquiryxte/ >> >> Bill >> -- >> William Van Etten, PhD >> email: bill at bioteam.net >> office/FAX: 978-255-1506 >> mobile: 617-921-3358 >> iChat: williamvanettenphd at mac.com >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Bioclusters maillist - Bioclusters at bioinformatics.org >> https://bioinformatics.org/mailman/listinfo/bioclusters >> >> > -- William Van Etten, PhD email: bill at bioteam.net office/FAX: 978-255-1506 mobile: 617-921-3358 iChat: williamvanettenphd at mac.com