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Musing from Mars has published an update of his Ajax Framework Browser compatibility review. It’s not a framework review but rather a rating of how compatible these frameworks are with all of the major browser versions. His grading scale is simple: the more versions of browsers you support, the better. See below.

A - IE 6, Firefox 1.0, Safari 1.2, Opera, Other DOM-compliant
B - IE 6, Firefox 1.x, Safari 2.x, Other DOM-compliant
C - IE 6, Firefox 1.x, Other DOM-compliant
D - IE 6, Firefox 1.5
E - IE 6

I’m not sure I agree with his grading scale (what grade does a framework that only supports Opera get?), but no matter. Some information is better than none. Some of the highlights? Echo2: A; ZK: D+ (Safari problems and insufficient testing); Tibco GI: E (tied to IE with very lame Firefox support).

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I’ve been promoting the idea of the collaborative spreadsheet as the killer app for AJAX for a while now. First there was WikiCalc, then Google spreadsheet. The folks over at the Dojo Foundation — yes, the Dojo Toolkit folks — have been working on a Wiki app that fits into this category as well. From their about page:

The goal of the project is to create an open source software product. The product we’re making is a wiki engine, but where most wiki engines are geared toward pages of text, OpenRecord is geared toward loosely-structured database content.

It’s still in an early development stage, but you can take a peek at some prototypes here. Click around to the various pages and try adding and editing cells and rows.

Speaking from experience, these types of applications will need professional support if they are to make a dent in the corporate world. Look for the document and knowledge management folks (OpenText, EMC/Documentum, etc.) to start introducing these "Office Lite" functions in their products.

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Well it’s happened. Down in the ferment that is the Echo2 Developer Forums, developers are contributing reusable components to the Echo2 framework. Beyond the EchopointNG components, lots of other developers have been throwing their hats in the ring. One fellow took a look at the new google home page and thought that a draggable, animated component panel like that would be a good thing for Echo2. He announced his component panel on the Echo2 development forum. Here’s a screenshot of a demo in action:

I’ve put up the demo for those who want to test it out for themselves. (It’s not my demo, i.e. I didn’t write it, I’m just putting it up.)

A few words about the demo. To use it, click the “Add Widget” text at the top to add widgets, then drag them around. Use the other buttons to change the behaviour of the panel. OK, have at it.

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Back on June 6th I made a note of this post by Echo2 creator Tod Liebeck at The Server Side, entitled Comparing the Google Web Toolkit to Echo2, but never got around to blogging about it. Tod gives a fairly succinct description of both GWT and Echo2:

GWT’s defining attribute is the Java-to-JavaScript compiler. This compiler allows you to develop the web interface to your application in Java, then compile it to JavaScript. GWT limits the developer to a subset of the Java 1.4 libraries. GWT applications can be served by any web server, such as Apache, without the need for server-side processing.

Echo2 applications are compiled to Java byte code and run on a Java server. Their Java code is executed by Echo2′s “Web Application Container” layer, which sits atop a Java Servlet. On the web browser, the Echo2 “Client Engine” communicates user input to the Web Application Container via AJAX requests, with the server responding with directives to perform incremental updates to the state of the client web browser.

He goes on to analyze other points of comparison, including architectural, performance and legal issues. A good comparison by one of the AJAX worlds leading developers.

One thought here is that many folks have held out a GWT as a tool for writing widgets for other frameworks such as ZK and Echo2. I’ve been going through the Javascript infrastructure of GWT and it seems there’s a whole lot of plumbing that stands in the way of making this a reality. More on this later.

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Openfount has released a beta of a set of libraries and tools for use with GWT. The web services parts of these work in conjunction with their queued server. This queued server basically acts as a proxy for XMLHttpRequest’s. So, if you want to access web services from Amazon but you’re loading your Javascript from another server, you can proxy the request through your server. There’s a bit more to it, but that’s the jist of it.

Looking at their Open Source license, I’m not sure it smells that good, but IANAL.

Update 1: I’ve had a closer look and have even more second (or should I say third) thoughts on this package.

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Ever since Laszlo Systems announced that they would be targeting DHTML as well as Flash, I’ve been peeking into their source repository from time to time, hoping to catch a glimpse of the elusive “Legals” (horrible name), the runtime that supports DHTML. Well, this past Thursday, on the Open Laszlo Project blog, they announced a milestone release of this mythical beast. From the entry:

Late last week, the OpenLaszlo project reached a huge milestone: release of the first source snapshot of our multiple-runtimes architecture, code named “Legals”. The purpose of this snapshot is to deliver infrastructure, tools, and architecture sufficient to allow broad community participation in the project.

We began Legals back in January because we felt it was finally time to invest in OpenLaszlo’s potential as a multi-runtime application framework. Adobe had released an initial beta of Flash 9 (then called Flash 8.5), and it was clear to us that it would be essentially an entirely new VM: new bytecode set, many improvements to the ActionScript language, and substantially revised APIs. In order to support Flash 9 we would need to build a new compiler backend and new runtime libraries.

If you’re viewing an lzx file from the OpenLaszlo server, you’ll need to tack a parameter onto it to get it to display the DHTML, i.e. test.lzx?lzr=dhtml.

So far, I’ve only been able to get it to display two text components. Adding in a button or anything else gives you a big nothing. Definitely, as it says, a work in progress on the DHTML side.

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Not sure if this is a real security issue or not or if the folks at Zabbey are just getting all bent out of shape about nothing.

While developing Zlap I
accidentally ran my test HTML file from my local machine. I was using
the XMLHttpRequest(), commonly used in AJAX software, that is built
into FireFox. The request I was making was to a PHP file that was also
on my local machine and it returned the full contents of said file.
Upon further examination I discovered I could pull any file from any
directory and have it displayed on the machine. I also tried to
replicate this after uploading the test file to my server, luckily it
failed.

What’s the big deal? I can’t remotely execute the file so we’re all
safe. Well sort of. If I can get you to open a perfectly safe HTML file
on your machine I can access your entire system. That’s right I can get
the Directory structure, the files and all the contents of those files.

I can execute this script without you knowing. I can upload the
contents of files to my server without you knowing. All I need to do is
get you to run a simple HTML file.

Hmmm, seems like correct behavior. Am I missing something?

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One way that AJAX frameworks are going to be embraced is by providing lots of widgets. Another is by signing up other companies to develop applications using their framework. Nothing spells credibility than working software. To that end Laszlo Systems has announced that someone’s going to be adding more oomph to their email software product built using OpenLaszlo:

Laszlo Systems, developer of OpenLaszlo, the leading advanced open source
platform for building and deploying Ajax applications, and Goodmail
Systems, creator of the CertifiedEmail system for trusted email, today
announced that Laszlo Mail will support the recognition and presentation of
CertifiedEmail messages. Offered for license to businesses and
communications service providers, Laszlo Mail delivers the functionality
and responsiveness of desktop email without requiring any client software
installation. Now with CertifiedEmail, Laszlo Mail will have the added
benefit of protecting users from phishing and other forms of email-based
fraud.

Hmm, the former Flash product is now "the leading advanced open source
platform for building and deploying Ajax applications." Last time I looked at their source tree it didn’t do DHTML yet.

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