The World Wide Web is reasonably clever, but I don't get the point. Ideally, interactive applications should be local. If the app needs remote resources, it goes and gets them -- but it still keeps the interaction part local. People only run interactive apps from a server when the local system can't support the application. (Unix users who access a Windows terminal server to run Word; graphic terminals that are deployed instead of PCs in pursuit of the "thin client" fantasy.) But the World Wide Web makes you recode everything from scratch anyway -- so compatibility is out the window. It's server computing for its own sake!
Yeah, this "World Wide Web" thing will never catch on....
sort of an outgrowth of how NeWS was supposed to work.
Funny that you mention NeWS -- my encounter with that windowing system was what started me on the journey of building XWT! It really frustrates me that the X11 dumb-display-server model won out. You should definately join discuss@xwt.org -- sounds like we're thinking along the same lines.
Anyways, yes, the UI is divided into widgets, each of which is composed of boxes (which are atomic). Each widget appears opaque to the outside world -- it looks like a single box that happens to behave in interesting ways. As an example, you set the width of a widget the same way you set the width of a box.
To get a better idea of how this works, try downloading demo.xwar, unzip it (it's a zip archive) and poke around in org/xwt/themes/monopoly/ -- each file describes a single widget; each XML node corresponds to a single box.
The comms protocol is XML:euch.
Yeah, I hear ya. Unfortunately almost everybody wants XML-over-HTTP these days. I'm looking into some more efficient transports for large data sets. I'm also going to add gzip encoding to the HTTP layer -- this should nullify the bandwidth bloat, although all the compression/uncompression and parsing will still cost CPU cycles.
I'd imagined being able to wrap the host side inside something that pretended to be one of the popular widget sets, like GDK.
Well, XWT is completely skinnable -- you can remap the widget definitions on the fly. For example, you can instruct the XWT Engine "change all instances of org.xwt.themes.monopoly.scrollbar to org.xwt.themes.gtk.scrollbar". In doing so, XWT will preserve key properties of the widgets being reconstructed (like the position and orientation of the scrollbar).
I used to have a GTK theme, but it sort of fell by the wayside. I probably should resurrect it just to demonstrate to people how skinnable this stuff is.
Many problems with the UI elements -- and these are fundamental problems that preclude me from considering the platform, currently, for development work.
Examples...from memory...the tree elements: when selecting a sub element, the parent element is also highlit (highlightened? highligthted?) and the highlight does not easily go away...painful.
This has been fixed.
I experienced on the site during the end of May, beginning of June were in NO WAY an encouragement.
Hrm, nobody else has reported such outages. Perhaps something is wrong with your upstream. Xwt.org is now hosted on a three-node failover cluster with machines on both coasts (US).
Hrm, that seems to just have been announced today (25-Jun).
Either way, there are a lot of XP machines out there that will never get the service pack. But thanks for letting me know about this -- I'll revise the language in the FAQ.
Hrm, I'm not aware of any major issues with the UI; if you find any, could you please log bugs for them so that I can fix them? Thanks!
is https supported
Yes, HTTPS is fully supported, including certificate validation, etc.
Hey James, I get the impression from your vague and occasionally inaccurate criticisms that you have an axe to grind or don't like me or something. I'm sorry for whatever I might have done to piss you off.
By the way, I use XML-RPC personally, so the SOAP stack isn't as well-tested as it probably should be. If you have trouble getting this to work with your.NET servers, please send me wire dumps (xwt -v) and I'll fix any bugs you find.
As for XWT vs Applets, please see this question in the faq.
1.7 Why should I use XWT instead of writing a Swing Java Applet that uses SOAP/XML-RPC?
Applets don't work on IE6, nor will they work on any future versions of IE (Microsoft has removed support for Java). Installing the Java2 plugin is cumbersome, complex and requires a 15MB download, compared with XWT's one-click launch and slim 500kb download.
Swing is ugly.
Writing applets requires a real programmer --
somebody familiar with computer science. XWT user interfaces, on the other hand, can be developed by designers with little programming experience.
XWT runs as native code on Win32 (and soon will on Linux, Solaris, and MacOSX as well), making it much faster and more responsive than applets. This is especially noticable when scrolling or smooth-resizing.
XWT user interfaces take much less time to develop.
Thanks for the bug report. Could you email me your log file so I can figure out what happened?
If you're using IE+Windows, your log file is called 'xwt-log.txt'; search your hard drive for it (including system folders on XP). If you're using any other browser/OS, your log file is on the java console; please cut and paste it into an email to adam at xwt dot org.
Pleae email me your log file; if this is a bug in XWT I'll fix it.
If you're using IE+Windows, your log file is called 'xwt-log.txt'; search your hard drive for it (including system folders on XP). If you're using any other browser/OS, your log file is on the java console; please cut and paste it into an email to adam at xwt dot org.
X11 and XWT do different things. The essential differences are:
XWT doesn't require you to download/install an X server. The client side is packaged as an ActiveX control for Windows users and a Java Applet for everybody else. The native code Linux/Solaris client is in beta testing.
XWT actually transmits the widget behaviors to the client. This means that scrolling a scrollbar, clicking a checkbox, or pulling down a menu happens entirely on the client side. The upshot is that you can actually use XWT across the public internet (even dialup!) without painful lag, unlike X11, which was designed for LANs.
Neither the federal government nor any state has ever had any sort of warranty/liability law that would affect gifts (transactions involving no payment or consideration), unless the defect was willful and intentional (ie trojans). There is no negligence protection for gifts. I highly doubt that any such software lemon law would break with this ancient precedent.
The GPL clause disclaiming only nondisclaimable warranties exists solely for severability purposes; the "unless prohibited by law" clause appears in almost every warranty disclaimer.
This is quite similar to XWT. XWT is often described as "A 'lite' version of Mozilla's XUL, packaged as an ActiveX/JavaApplet, using XML-RPC instead of XPCOM.
From the xwt.org front page:
XWT is the XML Windowing Toolkit. It lets you write remote applications -- applications that run on a server, yet can "project" their user interface onto any computer, anywhere on the Internet....
Unlike all other remote-display technologies, XWT applications are usable and responsive regardless of network congestion, delays, and even complete network failures.
The XWT Engine is packaged as both an ActiveX control and a Java applet, so you can access XWT applications from all major platforms (Win95/98/ME/NT/2k/XP, Linux, Solaris, MacOS X) without installing any additional software. It is distributed under an open source license (LGPL and GPL), so it can easily be ported to new platforms.
There's a tutorial to walk you through creating a tic-tac-toe application and a comprehensive reference
spelling out all the nitty gritty details about how the engine works.
IANAL, but I read the DCMA cover-to-cover. Technically, Napster could qualify as a "network service provider" -- for their network (the Napster Network), not the internet. If so, they would be obligated to "remove" copyright-infringing material on notice. This might include banning users, depending on the judge.
I think it's becoming quite apparent that central-server models like Napster just don't work for subversive technologies -- they're too easy for the government (and the lawyers) to target. A lot of people are switching to Gnutella, which is completely decentralized (think of an IRC net where everybody runs their own server).
But contemplate this: if Napster dies and Gnutella flourishes, the RIAA can hire a crack team of hackers (or would that be a hack team of crackers?) to launch skillful DoS attacks on the Gnutella network. It could be something as simple as putting fake listings on a thousand servers connected to the network -- make "Metallica -- Until It Sleeps.mp3" a radio advertisement for the album that the song is on.
Here's the kicker: with no centralized authority who can claim to "own" the network, devious mislistings like this aren't a denial of service attack. The RIAA believes that it is using the network for the right thing: disseminating advertising. If they flood the network with enough copies of this 'advertisement', you'll never be able to find Metallica songs because 99% of the hits won't be songs.
Well, unix.com
is slashdotted, so for this post I'll assume that
it is not being sold by Open Group,
the rightful owners of the trademark on the name "unix".
The Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act of 1999 amends current trademark law to encompass domain names, and has already been
tested in the courts. This bill would make registration,
use, or sale of the domain by anyone other than
the Open Group a crime, and I'm pretty sure that
eBay would halt the auction (according to their
current policies)
Slashdot Mirror
There doesn't seem to be a "sandbox" notion
Appendix B: Security Architecture and Considerations
Yeah, this "World Wide Web" thing will never catch on....
sort of an outgrowth of how NeWS was supposed to work.
Funny that you mention NeWS -- my encounter with that windowing system was what started me on the journey of building XWT! It really frustrates me that the X11 dumb-display-server model won out. You should definately join discuss@xwt.org -- sounds like we're thinking along the same lines.
Anyways, yes, the UI is divided into widgets, each of which is composed of boxes (which are atomic). Each widget appears opaque to the outside world -- it looks like a single box that happens to behave in interesting ways. As an example, you set the width of a widget the same way you set the width of a box.
To get a better idea of how this works, try downloading demo.xwar, unzip it (it's a zip archive) and poke around in org/xwt/themes/monopoly/ -- each file describes a single widget; each XML node corresponds to a single box.
The comms protocol is XML:euch.
Yeah, I hear ya. Unfortunately almost everybody wants XML-over-HTTP these days. I'm looking into some more efficient transports for large data sets. I'm also going to add gzip encoding to the HTTP layer -- this should nullify the bandwidth bloat, although all the compression/uncompression and parsing will still cost CPU cycles.
I'd imagined being able to wrap the host side inside something that pretended to be one of the popular widget sets, like GDK.
Well, XWT is completely skinnable -- you can remap the widget definitions on the fly. For example, you can instruct the XWT Engine "change all instances of org.xwt.themes.monopoly.scrollbar to org.xwt.themes.gtk.scrollbar". In doing so, XWT will preserve key properties of the widgets being reconstructed (like the position and orientation of the scrollbar).
I used to have a GTK theme, but it sort of fell by the wayside. I probably should resurrect it just to demonstrate to people how skinnable this stuff is.
I've never seen a web page that could do that.
Many problems with the UI elements -- and these are fundamental problems that preclude me from considering the platform, currently, for development work.
Care to email or submit a bug report? Thanks!
Examples...from memory...the tree elements: when selecting a sub element, the parent element is also highlit (highlightened? highligthted?) and the highlight does not easily go away...painful.
This has been fixed.
I experienced on the site during the end of May, beginning of June were in NO WAY an encouragement.
Hrm, nobody else has reported such outages. Perhaps something is wrong with your upstream. Xwt.org is now hosted on a three-node failover cluster with machines on both coasts (US).
Either way, there are a lot of XP machines out there that will never get the service pack. But thanks for letting me know about this -- I'll revise the language in the FAQ.
UI not tight yet
Hrm, I'm not aware of any major issues with the UI; if you find any, could you please log bugs for them so that I can fix them? Thanks!
is https supported
Yes, HTTPS is fully supported, including certificate validation, etc.
Hey James, I get the impression from your vague and occasionally inaccurate criticisms that you have an axe to grind or don't like me or something. I'm sorry for whatever I might have done to piss you off.
A RAD tool for XWT is in the works; it'll look a lot like tekadence. The tool itself is written in XWT, so it's metacircular (oooh, big word...)
As for XWT vs Applets, please see this question in the faq.
1.7 Why should I use XWT instead of writing a Swing Java Applet that uses SOAP/XML-RPC?
It doesn't replace VNC.
Wow, I thought I'd fixed that one. Could you please email me a screenshot and a description of what you were doing at the time? Thanks.
Thanks for the bug report. Could you email me your log file so I can figure out what happened?
If you're using IE+Windows, your log file is called 'xwt-log.txt'; search your hard drive for it (including system folders on XP). If you're using any other browser/OS, your log file is on the java console; please cut and paste it into an email to adam at xwt dot org.
Pleae email me your log file; if this is a bug in XWT I'll fix it.
If you're using IE+Windows, your log file is called 'xwt-log.txt'; search your hard drive for it (including system folders on XP). If you're using any other browser/OS, your log file is on the java console; please cut and paste it into an email to adam at xwt dot org.
[Disclosure: I wrote XWT]
X11 and XWT do different things. The essential differences are:
This ran in the New Yorker. Of course it's going to advocate large corporations over individual inventors. Most of their readership are managers.
If Wired decided that they were going to run an article on inventors, do you think it would glorify the organization or the individual?
Neither the federal government nor any state has ever had any sort of warranty/liability law that would affect gifts (transactions involving no payment or consideration), unless the defect was willful and intentional (ie trojans). There is no negligence protection for gifts. I highly doubt that any such software lemon law would break with this ancient precedent.
The GPL clause disclaiming only nondisclaimable warranties exists solely for severability purposes; the "unless prohibited by law" clause appears in almost every warranty disclaimer.
I wondered if you'd pop up in this discussion. :)
No doubt =)
Care to post a few lines about your plans to use XWT to enhance PHPTriad?
This is quite similar to XWT. XWT is often described as "A 'lite' version of Mozilla's XUL, packaged as an ActiveX/JavaApplet, using XML-RPC instead of XPCOM.
From the xwt.org front page:
XWT is the XML Windowing Toolkit. It lets you write remote applications -- applications that run on a server, yet can "project" their user interface onto any computer, anywhere on the Internet....
Unlike all other remote-display technologies, XWT applications are usable and responsive regardless of network congestion, delays, and even complete network failures.
The XWT Engine is packaged as both an ActiveX control and a Java applet, so you can access XWT applications from all major platforms (Win95/98/ME/NT/2k/XP, Linux, Solaris, MacOS X) without installing any additional software. It is distributed under an open source license (LGPL and GPL), so it can easily be ported to new platforms.
There's a tutorial to walk you through creating a tic-tac-toe application and a comprehensive reference spelling out all the nitty gritty details about how the engine works.
I think it's becoming quite apparent that central-server models like Napster just don't work for subversive technologies -- they're too easy for the government (and the lawyers) to target. A lot of people are switching to Gnutella, which is completely decentralized (think of an IRC net where everybody runs their own server).
But contemplate this: if Napster dies and Gnutella flourishes, the RIAA can hire a crack team of hackers (or would that be a hack team of crackers?) to launch skillful DoS attacks on the Gnutella network. It could be something as simple as putting fake listings on a thousand servers connected to the network -- make "Metallica -- Until It Sleeps.mp3" a radio advertisement for the album that the song is on.
Here's the kicker: with no centralized authority who can claim to "own" the network, devious mislistings like this aren't a denial of service attack. The RIAA believes that it is using the network for the right thing: disseminating advertising. If they flood the network with enough copies of this 'advertisement', you'll never be able to find Metallica songs because 99% of the hits won't be songs.
Well, unix.com is slashdotted, so for this post I'll assume that it is not being sold by Open Group, the rightful owners of the trademark on the name "unix".
The Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act of 1999 amends current trademark law to encompass domain names, and has already been tested in the courts. This bill would make registration, use, or sale of the domain by anyone other than the Open Group a crime, and I'm pretty sure that eBay would halt the auction (according to their current policies)