(no subject)

[Deryck Hodge]

Hi, Tim and David (and all).

Sorry for the delay in response.  Had a deadline hanging over me that
I had to get out from under.

>
> > from Derycks SVN it looks like he is going to be using xml/xslt and ajax
> > in a way that some of the google apps do.
> > If nobody has any good reasons for wanting otherwise, I guess that will
> > be the way of doing things.
>
> From memory the ajax-like code uses javascript instead of xml to
> transport data as it's easier to do this using Samba4's embedded
> javascript interpreter.

Tim's right here.  We don't use XML; we just pass JS objects around. 
It's not really JSON, but it's like that.  Tridge has his own routines
for encoding objects to string and back.  The thinking was, as Tim
mentions, that JS to JS would be more convenient, quicker, etc.

As for rendering the interface, I think some decision needs to be made
with regard to toolkit.  My JavaScript library does focus on a
Google-like approach, which is not widget driven, but XMLHttp and XSL
heavy.  I really just include all the scripts from my library, which
includes the XSLT/XPATH stuff, to give me flexibility while working
out the shape of SWAT2.  I don't image we would really use XSL, but we
can explore that if people are interested.

If we want desktop widgets, I do like the library in the parent to
this thread.  Tridge mentioned it to me earlier, and I was impressed. 
I purposely moved away from widget kits because developing with them
was a nightmare -- the toolkit becomes the framework through which you
have to build the app, and you can't do even the smallest DOM function
in JavaScript without going through the toolkit.  The wtk kit seems to
avoid this and is pretty light weight.

From my POV, I'd really like to just get a basic "page" layout in
place, which is almost there now.  I liked to get this hooked properly
into the EJS/ESP.  After that, we should really decide to what extent
we want to use widgets or the more common column/div approach (for
lack of a better word), and how we want to render this.  Some controls
will obviously be needed whether widget or otherwise when we look at
LDB and registry editors.

There's much more work here than I can possibly get to, so I welcome
the input and help.  I think, too, that SWAT2 will need someone to
take ownership of it long term, rather than just me playing around all
the time.

Cheers,
deryck

--
Deryck Hodge
http://www.devurandom.org/
http://www.samba.org/

"Aimless days, uncool ways of decathecting" --Mike Doughty (2005)