adrian's wall

I posted the previous post ( JDNC and Rich Internet Applications ) to the JDNC forum and got a timely and well-considered reply from Mark Davidson. It has made me realise that I have completely failed to articulate what I find so attractive about the browser metaphor and, by extension, my perception of what a RIA should be. RIA is an acronym I saw first used by Macromeduia in conjunction with its Flex product. But I have seen it more generally used by those with a server-side Java perspective, trying to describe what are essentially web applications but with a richer interface. There are a variety of technologies for doing this but most share a common architecture. Rather than delivering HTML, the server-side is responsible for constructing an XML payload (which typically includes both declarative and procedural elements) that is delivered (sometimes via a proxy) to the browser. The browser (or a plug-in hosted by the browser) then presents the application to the user. To rec...

It seems impossible to find out whether JDNC (JDesktop Network Components) are really designed to contribute to the development of RIA or not. When used in a web-page, JNDC are essentially applets but they can be configured with the same XML configuration files as their desktop equivalents. Futhermore the components, because they are 'network' aware, can fetch their data from the originating web-site. Thus they have precisely the characteristics to make them a valuable component on a web-page. But the documentation seems only too keen to point out the problems with using them on web-pages (variable Java support, longer load times, the need to reload after a page refresh). JDNC demos are all WebStart based and nobody is saying anything about scripting JDNC or allowing them to interact with other page content, be it HTML content accessible through the DOM or a Flash component. While it might be possible to drive JDNC components with Javascript (just because it can already speak...

Congratulation to the people at clevercactus, there is now a public release of clevercactus share, described on the site as: clevercactus share is a private and secure environment to share files with people you know. clevercatcus takes something we all thought we understood, namely the internet, back to basics. Make it possible for pairs/groups of people to communicate directly with each other. No need for DNS, no need for FTP servers, no need for special handling of firewalls and the like. Just secure, ad-hoc, point-to-point connections between machines out on the edge. the technology Its Java based [UPDATE] using their own P2P framework, not JXTA, and they have gone to great lengths to provide a quality desktop look and feel. clevercactus has both desktop and web components. The desktop component installs itself nicely into your 'whatever it is called - bottom right on windows' bar. [UPDATE] It also updates itself, like JWS, but they've done it themselves...

At last Sun has released something that acknowledges the need for a Java response to rich internet applications. The article introducing Java Desktop Integration Components talks of a desire to bridge the gap between 'browser-based applications' and 'rich desktop applications'. JDIC is just one of a number of Java technologies that can deliver on the desktop, Java Desktop Network Components is another. What is still missing is a clear vision of how all these parts are supposed to be used together for different types of application. For what its worth, my own preoccupation is with RIA - a possible convergence of 'browser-based' and 'rich desktop' apps accessed through a browser. Sun has seeded the JDIC project with an HTML rendering component and that ought to make a difference, but it has kept to its WORA principles (will the Java Desktop ever get a preferred status?) Consequently the level of control offered is very high-level. Making an HTML canv...