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Microsoft Wins HTML App Patent
crataegus writes "'Microsoft on Tuesday won a patent for launching a certain kind of HTML application within Windows. The patent, "Method and apparatus for writing a Windows application in HTML" (Hypertext Markup Language), describes Microsoft's way of opening up HTML applications in a window free of navigation and other interface elements, known as "chrome," and browser security restrictions.' Why does this sound vaguely familiar?"
I haven't read the Microsoft patent, but it is not just "configurable chrome" like the Mozilla link in the post. Essentially, Microsoft applications like the "Add/Remove Programs" control panel applet are normal Windows applications that use HTML for their interface rather than normal Win32 widgets.
The patent (I presume) is on this method, where a browser control is pointed at a DLL rather than a web server speaking HTTP. This is completely different than skinning, as it is a way of running a dynamic, HTML-based application locally without a web server.
That's the reason for the latest change to the patent laws. It used to be 17 years from date of award. Now it's 20 years from date of filing -- and you need to file within one year of publication.
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
Remember Netcaster?. Netcaster might have been a heinous abomination but it was still an app written in HTML, JS etc. as the link makes pretty clear.
Or perhaps MS thinks that the patent only covers Win32-only HTML apps. In other words cripple your HTML based app so it only runs on their platform and infringe on their patent. It makes sense to someone I'm sure.
XUL is the eXtensible UI Layout language. It's an XML dialect that describes the layout of widgets on the screen (sort of like what Glade does, or WinForms). These widgets are hooked up with JavaScript to implement the "interactive" component of the interface, and the widgets and display elements themselves are a mix of compiled functionality from the NSPR (which may defer to real OS widgets), but the majority is actually XHTML.
.jar files ala Java, and the URLs are accessed internally by the "chrome" protocol.
The whole thing gets packaged up in
It's quite cool. And the technology is old, so I don't see Microsoft's ability to defend its position as strong.
(I believe this is MOSTLY accurate. Someone please correct me who is more familiar with Moz)
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
I don't know. If you knew anything about Windows HTAs, you'd know that they have no discernible similarity to the Mozilla technologies you reference. That technology allows (for example) skinning. The point about HTAs is that they get rid of the browser chrome, at the same time as being nothing to do with the use of web browser-originated technology for browsing.
The point about HTAs is that they consist of (X)HTML, JavaScript and COM (ActiveX) objects. When installed on your system, they run as applications in the Windows environment, meaning no sandboxing: file system access, etc.
As somebody is going to sneer "Why would I let a web site do that", let me point out that this isn't anything to do with websites. If you download and install an HTA, you have to follow the same procedures as for any other software you download. Anybody distributing an HTA would probably have to package it using an installer of some kind. You can't just have one appear when you go to a site; any HTA that does anything useful needs a bunch of COM components installed in addition.
And for those who ask "What's the point of it": one good use is for creating test harnesses for COM components. You can code up a UI with a quick bit of HTML, stick some JavaScript in there and run your test cases against the component. It's even easier than using VB to create such utility apps. It's also useful for rapid prototyping of ideas; it only takes a few minutes to explore a concept (if you're any good at JavaScript programming). But I can't imagine many people actually shipping HTAs.
Why grant them a patent? I assume it's because they were the first to think of taking the technology out of the web browser, rearranging it in this novel way, and thereby providing a facility that wasn't there before.
I wouldn't worry about it affecting your lives in any great way; it's specifically a Microsoft technology.
But I still wonder why somebody would take the words 'a window free of navigation and other interface elements, known as "chrome,"' and think it was similar to a technology for adding chrome.
Using HTML in email is like putting sound effects on your phone calls. Just say <strong>no</strong>.
kinda sounds like this
I've never seen MS talk about "chrome" before
Really?
Their "Chrome" stuff predates Mozilla. Although they're not using the word in that context.
1998 references to Chrome from Microsoft
Coming soon - pyrogyra
Rename your .htm to .hta and run it localy on a windows system. Do a task list and you will see a mshta.exe is the task.
Now kill it, and your page dies too
in win2k and newer try this"
open control Panel and run Add/Remove Programs
You are looking at hta in action.
kill mshta.exe again, Add/Remove Programs dies as well.
I find HTA handy when I dont want to load visual studio for a quick app that I would rather run as a web page, but I can't because I need more system level access. A quick VBScript or JScript with a html frontend in notepad works wonders.
FYI: Little help is actualy written for HTA, but realize it is a mix of Script and HTML working together named *.hta
Im a gamer, not a grammer major. This post is full of spelling and grammer mistakes.
actually, they're the same thing. Both refer to the elements of the GUI except content. For instance, mozilla's chrome is the xul and js that specifies what the stuff in the window is and what it does.
But my lecturer says the main distinction is that languages fall into three categories: imperative (assembly, C, BASIC, etc.), functional (Haskell and all that) and logic (prolog). How does that fit with your idea of programming languages?
That is the standard categorization used, but you are right that there are other distinctions, such as line-based vs. structured. Similarly along these lines we have lexical vs. dynamic scoping, strong vs. weak typing, explicit vs. implicit typing, and sequential vs. implicit vs. explicit concurrency. There's also a general sense of "how much you have to type" to write or modify a program, i.e. how compact the notation is. Note that Visual Basic (and Quick Basic before it) are actually structured languages, unlike the line-number-oriented BASICs before them.
I think one of the most useful combinations of language features is something compact, between imperative and functional with structured, lexically scoped, implicit static typing with built-in support for (including fine-grain) explicit concurrency (explicit concurrency is required for on-line I/O, which conflicts with a pure functional language's simple input-compute-output-stop program model). Unfortunately, there aren't any popular languages like this (especially for good concurrency & I/O support).
THE NERD IS THE COMPUTER.
I read the patent. I've written XUL applications using Mozilla. The claims covered by the patent are functionally the same to XUL chrome. -rick