[Pipet Devel] Web interface

[J.W. Bizzaro]

Carlos Maltzahn wrote:
> JavaScript is open source isn't it? It's part of Mozilla. Supposedly the
> Raptor/Gecko layout engine is going to support "HTML 4.0, CSS 1/2, XML
> 1.0, and the Document Object Model" (first stable version of Gecko is due
> sometime during first half of 1999). For example for dragging and dropping
> stuff around you need layers (HTML4), event handling (JavaScript/DOM), and
> absolute positioning of elements (CSS2/DOM). I'm not sure how soon Mozilla
> is going to support all this, but I suspect within this year.

Okay.  I didn't realize JavaScript would go open source with Mozilla.  If
that's the case, then I have no quarrels about using it.  *But* the Mozilla
license is more restrictive than GPL...Hmmm.

> Because there is no open source version that supports a sufficiently
> dynamic interface yet - but it might arrive within this year -, it is
> probably a good idea to implement the UI in GTK first. Once the design
> stabilizes and the open source web interface language implementation
> becomes available, some of us can then see how far one can push a dynamic
> web interface.

I agree.  That's just the way I see it :-)  Who knows, if the Web becomes THAT
dynamic, the Web interface and the rest of the Loci clients may merge...But
are we to expect that Netscape will provide an all-pupose, cross-platform GUI
widget set?  Hmmm.  It does sound hard to believe...We'll wait and take the
conservative route here.


Jeff
-- 
J.W. Bizzaro                  Phone: 617-552-3905
Boston College                mailto:bizzaro at bc.edu
Department of Chemistry       http://www.uml.edu/Dept/Chem/Bizzaro/
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