RE: [cobalt-developers] Problems with the Cobalt GUI and Linux browsers

["William L. Thomson Jr." <wlt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, 2002-06-28 at 00:46, Robert Walter wrote:

> The sausalito architecture
> uses pretty purist level HTML to generate the user interface as well as
> a few javascript calls.

It seems to be the JavaScript aspects that seem to be the problem here,
not so much HTML.

> If alternate browser developers can't keep the
> basic functionality of the HTML standard intact, should every other
> developer in the world dance to their drum?

We are talking mostly about the Mozilla engine that runs Galeon and
Netscape. Mozilla is the supposed to be standard open source browser,
and they just release the first version 1.0. I would be very surprised
if there were aspects of Mozilla that were not w3c compliant. 

> In terms of flash for a UI,
> why bother. It's way to slow. 

It's like this, it's a vector format, and for example look at the index
page of my site. The static image in Flash in vector format is more than
half of the size if I tried to export the same image as a gif, jpeg,
png, tiff, or any other format. I can send you the source if you want to
play around. Even if a smaller file size could be achieved it will not
be the same end quality as the Flash file and can't be rescaled without
further loss.

Not to mention my index Flash file has some ActionScript that calls
javascript for the pop up window into the actual site. All in a file
smaller and better looking than the picture but itself in another
format.

> It uses proprietary software to develop
> in,

Yes and no. Traditionally and more than likely 90% of people out there
use the Flash env to create Flash but that is not the only way. Using
software like JGenerator, you can create entire flash file from Java.
You just process your Java code though JGenerator using it's API and it
will pop out Flash files.

There is still a free community edition of JGenerator that can be used
as described above.

> and is a pain to integrate into back end systems that require
> dynamic content.

Completely wrong. It is not different than allot of things like any
server side language with HTML, WML, and etc.

With HTML you can't draw, and doing so with javascript can be dangerous
for the exact reason this discussion is taking place. While there are
standards on JavaScript, there are still differences in browsers on
different platforms.

With Flash and software like JGenerator you can draw and create Flash
files on the server, or with Flash 6 you can now draw client side using
the Flash ActionScript language which is damn close to the one of the
standards of Javascript, I am not sure if it's w3c, or something else.
But all parsing is done withing the player/plugin and is not as
dependent on the browsers implementation of javascript.

Once again there are lots of pluses and minus to Flash and like I said a
very important one is it's consistency across mediums.

What if one day you need to admin your Cobalt server from a wireless
device, tablet pc or something along those lines. You typically would
have to design a separate interface using another mark up language or
step back in time on what code can be used for the baby browsers. This
is where Flash will really start to shine, and is.

> I think what needs to be done is this. Get the guys that write the
> browser software on the same page! All these browser developers want to
> be the kings of free software. So they add bells and whistles to try and
> win users. But what they need to learn is that they really are just a
> means of accessing the real information. We the end users don't want
> muddy interpretaion, we want form & function. PLAIN AND SIMPLE.

Is that not what the w3c and other standards are all about. Now a
majority of web surfers use a flavor of IE. MS has been famous for
throwing all kinds of BS in their browsers, things that are not
standard, and allot that cause security issues.

Now the question really comes down to things like the differences
between running Netscape or Mozilla on Windows/Mac or Linux.

You would think the engines to be the same but there is obviously some
difference in there. But as far as I know they both have the same
implementation of javascript, and adhere to the same standards which is
usually closer to the w3c standard than any other browser.

I would also imagine the same problems that exist with Netscape &
Mozilla on Linux exists on other Unix platforms, including Solaris.

> If they held to form & function, all would be well.

For the most part the ones we are talking about do. It's just strange
there are difference in what features work on different platforms.

In one way or another I would imagine it may have something to do with
some native libraries being os specific that each browser is using. That
would explain some of the difference between features working on some
platforms but not all, when using the same browser and version.

> Like I said, just my 2cents worth.
 
No problem, discussions and input from as many as possible is always a
good thing. That's how things get improved.

Of course one questions does arise from this and I do not know the specs
and am not going to compare code so I really could not comment on this
but

Does the sausalito architecture adhere to the w3c implementation of HTML
and javascript and etc? Or does it adhere to any standards?

So basically, we can ask to have the browsers modified, or make sure
apps are up to the minimum standard that all browsers theoretically
should support.

-- 
Sincerely,
William L. Thomson Jr.
Obsidian-Studios, Inc.
439 Amber Way
Petaluma, Ca. 94952
Phone  707.766.9509
Fax    707.766.8989
http://www.obsidian-studios.com