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Early AJAX Office Applications
prostoalex writes "Perhaps many, who viewed Zimbra presentation from yesterday, thought about other office-related applications they would like to see moved to the Web. Richard McManus on ZDNet provides a list of the currently available AJAX apps. Did you know there was AJAX word processor, AJAX spreadsheet, AJAX calendar, AJAX presentation-building software, AJAX e-mail client, AJAX note-taking software and some other interesting applications, which, deployed on your local server, do not need installation and "just work" in a browser window?"
Remember java applets?! They were suppose to do these kind of things...
Stop with the acronyms for goodness sakes.
AJAX is a floor cleaning product.
I'm sorry to say this, but there are too many people who think something is cool because it uses the latest hip technology. Nobody cares that it is AJAX, they just care that it works well and does what they want.
The sooner OSS and other people writing software out there realise this the better.
Rant over
Great, so now the network being down means I can get absolutely no work done.
I'd like this if they sold $20 dumb terminals to use it, but I paid a lot of money for a computer that can run applications locally without constantly going to the network.
And just in case they mentioned that that's not a concern in one of those 40 linked pages, no, I didn't read all the articles, so feel free to yell at me now.
People have been doing this stuff using the same methodology since < 2003 and have been dealing with the pros and cons eversince. Convinsing PMs that the technology has potential was a lot of trouble then, but since the term AJAX was coined the situation has become the opposite; we are now trying to point out the pitfalls.
The power of buzzwords in people's minds is astonishing. Guess our brain is too dependent on abstraction/handles.
The Ajax apps all look extremely impressive, but I do believe inconsistent UI will eventually plateau the adoption. Developers love to play the artist when there's a clean slate, and everyone will have their own set of icons and widgets.
Developers need to understand that once you're over 25 years old, you don't care to learn brand new interfaces all over again. The closer it looks to something familiar (your Windows/Mac OS UI), the better. For God's sake, if it doesn't look at Windows, at least make the metaphors intuitive.
My recent pet peeve is tiny little icons, just for the sake of tiny little icons. I'm familiar with the standard "Open", "Save", "Copy", "Cut", "Paste", and "Print" icons. That saves real estate over text, and saves me time.
However, With monitors getting bigger and bigger, unique icons will NO LONGER OFFER THE SAME BENEFIT. I'm not going to hover my mouse pointer over every single 8-pixel-by-8-pixel icon you have, just to forget it the next time around because you lined up 50 of them on the toolbar like lucky charms. If there's room for text, and if that saves time, put the text in!
Things where one user needs to access an application from many locations (email for example), or where a group of distributed users need have instant access to shared information (calendar, notes) .. great idea to have a remotely hosted application or data store.
.. I'm not sure of course, but I rather doubt the capability of a javascript based spreadsheet. It might be ok for holding a small set of data and a handful of equations, but I wouldn't much like to view the last 10 years of accounts of a medium sized company with one. It'd be considerably slower than a properly compiled and optimized application.
But for word processing? Spreadsheets? That seems like a waste of bandwidth, and an unnecessary security risk. I've been working remotely for the last 2 years (300 miles from the company office). I've never encountered a situation where a remote service text editor would be preferable to a local app. Given my flaky internet connection that would really be a very bad thing. Whatsmore
http://twitter.com/onion2k
Having only just managed to ween my co-workers off a ton of needless javascript in their applications 'improvements' in web technologies such as AJAX are a concern to me. Having read all about 'Web 2.0' technologies, I'm left to wonder where the business case for all this while STILL maintaining standards in accessibility comes from?
Please note: accessibility means equal access for ALL, it is not a term to differentiate disabled internet users from their able-bodied peers.
So now we have we have to use libraries that work for IE and every other browser separately, we then have rewrite it all for people using accessibility aids that often use scraping techniques to get content from the page and wont update unless the page refreshes, so we have to write a legacy version anyway (of course, you can make the call that the chance of getting sued is low enough not to bother).
Before people say we have to write a ton of code to account for different browsers and accessibility combinations, I work supplying web apps to public sector education bodies and none of my applications require wild cul-de-sacs of code for special scenarios.
We have only just started mastering equal access for all in web applications as it is, the last thing we need is a new generation of web developers who think that "omg cool functionality kthx" > accessibility
Great. What a wonderful way to write applications that DONT ACTUALLY DO ANYTHING.
Call me when you get PhotoShop, Doom, Oracle9 and Soundtrack running at a decent speed in a web browser.
For now, I'll stick to C code thanks.
Yes. For rather obvious security reasons, XMLHttpRequest is limited to making requests to the host the script originated from. Also it would be way slower than a normal web browser. Plus completely inaccessible, which is illegal in many places.
That falls apart when the browser that isn't the "latest and most popular" doesn't support the technologies your AJAX browser uses.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
Back when I started computers, we had dumb terminals with applications running on mainframes. I had no ability to write my own code; I had no right to execute CPU cycles for anything other than work. And nor could I, as CPU cycles were audited and 'billed' against each department.
And so we will return. The server based module of applictaion licencing will suit the likes of Microsoft enormously. They want a constant revenue stream, not just intermittent ( but huge ) income on new product releases.
More insidiously though, this move will start to erode our usgae 'rights' again . Little by little we will be discouraged from installing applications on our PC's.
There are good aspects to server hosted applications and data storage, but also some very bad ones.
Open Source Drum Kit, LPLC deve board - mjhdesigns.com
Everyone seems to be running around raving about AJAX applications. Why do you all think AJAX is so good? Really? It's cool if you need to update a webpage without reloading (and particularly for server-push), but why do I want server-push functionality in a word processor, spreadsheet, calendar, presentation-building software or note-taking software (note, I've taken e-mail client out of that list, as server push is actually useful there)?
Sure, if these were tools to allow multiple people to work on the same document simultaneously, but these all seem to share data only after it's been saved back to the server. As someone else pointed out, the presentation application doesn't even use AJAX!
Would people please stop using AJAX to mean "Really cool looking Javascript application"? If Javascript applications excite you, fine, you're welcome to them, but please get the terms right...
It might just be me -- and this might sound like a personal whinge -- but I am interested to here what other people have to say.
/. posts - the technology is nothing new and its just a silly acronym. But I digress. My biggest problem is that I like my major applications -- email, word processor, spreadsheet, html editor, whatever - to a seperate *unique* presence on the (*hides head in shame*) Windows task bar. It is so much easier to recognise the application on the taskbar when it has its own entry invariably with a unique icon, rather than just being one of possibly tens of browser windows. Invariably I end up loosing my web application in a jumble of other browser windows and/or tabs, or thinking its just another browser windows, accidently close it. Then there is always the problem of the browser crashing, often because I am also browsering, and thus loosing whatever important documents or email I also have open.
:) I'd much rather download a small executable that embeds a browser window within some sort of unique container (if that's the right terminology) that runs as a unique program, with its own task bar entry, and its own icon. So, for example, I could launch gmail.exe and it would have its own presence on the task bar even though it was essentially just gecko rending the gmail website. It could even extend functionality, allowing one to minimise it to tray and so forth.
I find these AJAX applications very impressive, even if - according to the endless
As I said, it may well just be me, but perhaps I'm not alone
Just my 0.02c worth.
AJAX sounds like it will be a boon for naturally based web applications.
I don't see office applications as being naturally web based applications, they seem to be very natural living on my desktop. I can't see why I would need to be connected to write a paper or do my budget.
On the innocent side it just seems like a misdirected project.
On the sinister side it seems similar to e-books....another way to take away something I have come to take for granted as possessing.
My word processor may be old, but it is mine.
I can just see the bull shit now.
"Oh, you don't own the AJAX office suite, you were only renting the use of it. Since your lease is up you cannot use it to view your old work... unless you want to pay us more money"
If I, as a user, have to "Pay-per-use" for their AJAX word-processor, then screw it. I'll download and install one of the fine, free alternatives, or bite the bullet, and buy a copy of MS Office.
The reason Web Apps failed, is because they tried to impose a "pay-per-use" model, and failed to develop any reasonably workable micropayments system (in other words, pay-per-use means macropayments per use.)
Fuck that.
I already have a monthly electric bill, a monthly transportation bill, a monthly mortgage payment, a monthly internet service fee, a monthly phone bill. I earn a flat monthly salary.
I want a flat fee up front, and unlimited use on the back end of the deal, and I don't want planned obsolescence built into the product either.
Nicking into my monthly budget is why web apps failed in the past, and why they will fail in the future.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Sun killed Java through stupidity.
Strange definition of 'killed', as Java is the most widely used development language.