World: r3wp

REBOL/View targets the native widget set of the host and tries to 
provide a platform-independent experience, based on a more abstract 
definition of interface.  This seems to be somewhat redundant with 
efforts like Firefox, Opera, etc.  I curious if REBOL/View would 
be better implemented by targeting an Ajax-like browser that already 
lives on the machine... or if there is a compelling reason not to 
do it that way.

I haven't programmed in REBOL/View but I had experience with Tcl's 
"Tk" back in the day

And they seem analogous.

First - REBOL does NOT link to native OS widget set. We have general 
gfx objects (faces in R2, gob! in R3), and their events. View builds 
complete gfx engine upon it. Kind of XUL for Mozilla, before they 
gave up and linked to native widgetset?

Ok, when I say widget set I mean to say... er... "GDI"

It sounds like you are saying that REBOL, like the Qt library, abstracts 
the widgets and goes to more of a "give me a window and a graphics 
surface and I'll do all my own drawing and event management"

My friend told me - I work with Python, and I can use Tk, Wxwidgets, 
Qt, etc. bindings, while View (VID2) still has many deficiencies. 
And he is right, although partly. We are trapped in our own cave 
- we liked VID/View, for its simplicity. But we were not able to 
provide complete styleset for all those years, because VID2 would 
require complete rewrite (non OS compatible focusinga layer, missing 
rich-text, etc.)

yes, View is yet-another-low-level-gfx-engine-out-there :-)

Yes, I have my own opinions of how to do this right and of course 
I don't think W3C is doing a terribly profound job of it.  :)

Later on, guys improved situation a bit - including cool AGG vector 
library into View ... (www.antigrain.com ). This is really cool and 
puts Cairo into trashcan (which is what they should do in the very 
beginning, except the Mozilla politics)

However, I'm the sort who kind of starts to accept certain inevitabilities. 
 It is inevitable that everyone will have a web browser on their 
desktop, that they are already running, that can do Ajax-like stuff... 
a la Gmail.

so, in fact, REBOL is language like any other out there - we could 
create bindings for Qt etc. too. That is why I said we have two sides 
of one coin here. If View would not exist, we would probably today 
use other gui engine ...

But - that is not full story ....

Seems REBOL could get smaller by embracing that, and becoming a web 
server on the local machine... plus this would put web server capability 
and web forms native to REBOL...

ajax suxx, remember :-)

Inevitability... :)

Next move on our part was supposed to be browser plug-in. And it 
was partly done. You can probably find it via rebol.net and install 
- both IE, NS type plug-in, Windows.

And I still think, View can be used for the good. You can still replace 
it, but maybe we've got some advantages here:

More important than plugging REBOL into browser is probably plugging 
browser into REBOL/View

a la Webkit

View including rebol is still under 1MB - what other language provides 
that? Flash, Silverlight (which needs .Net)? We are "third to the 
game" here.

View now switched its compositing fully to AGG, and it got something 
like 20x faster in some areas.

Did you know iTunes doesn't use WebKit, BTW?  I just found that out.

The iTunes store, inside the app, implements its own web browser 
doodad.

We've got rich text, and we are at third prototype of VID3 - completly 
new beast, which will remove all obstacles with found with VID2.

Can you edit arabic right to left?  :)

WebKit is the only way imo of how to "easily" get browser-into-plugin 
scenario.

Not yet, I said prototype, not release candidate :-) But it will 
come .... It uses some advanced concepts, you will see later :-)

Can you auto resize your current UI? :-)

Well, many web pages actually do an ok job of it.

I would wait. In the end, the problem is elsewhere - we need more 
ppl. Then some group can start to wrap Qt or WxWidgets and the point 
will be moot. But View still can find some nice usages. I will use 
it for our next kiosk project anyway.

However - you are absolutly right - no matter how non-realtime web-apss 
are (it is still a joke, ajax non ajax), it is where the world goes 
imo, and this is why Reichart choosed web as a Qtask front-end imo

Oh, I'm sure it is quite useful, I am only saying that given current 
trends I would think it should be moved out of the core download 
and that the core download should function on being a web server 
and using the browser for interface.

e.g. that would be a profound and compelling smart R3 decision in 
my view

Re browser inside  I'd like to see that;  I've been playing with 
w3m -dump to get formatted text out of pages into a View app.

Brian;  Some work has been done on BiDi


And this post got pushed up from Core yesterday.     REBOL is an 
awesome Webhosting language today.


Brian; Look to Cheyenne...  It's a showcase REBOL product.  Using 
its embed technology, in theory, a website with server can be a single 
REBOL script.  It's a Go Doc Go! example of where skilled REBOL really 
shines. 

http://softinnov.org/cheyenne.shtmlbut look to the !Cheyenne group 
here for  updates http://softinnov.org/tmp/cheyenne-r0918.zip


Just so ya know, I'm a real Go Doc Go! fan of Cheyenne.  Running 
on GNU/Linux ... webhosting from anywhere ... just nice.   Go Doc 
Go!   :)

noone prevents anyone from doing so. But what is going to be the 
end result anyway? And end user app? You could not choose worse environment 
for corporate app than web site.

look at - php (other), db on the server, js, xhtml, xml, css on the 
client ... what a mess. We are trying to push web where it never 
meant to go. Fixing layers upon layers by adding yet another layers 
and excuses for not functioning realtime on my Core 2 Duo 2GB PC 
:-)

Pekr: yes, I am looking at Qtask's source and pondering it, and the 
main thing I'm pondering is why they are doing that platform work 
and it's not built into REBOL and reviewed by more people.  I agree 
with you in some ways that the HTML lowest common denominator means 
that the apps you end up with seem crippled/slow/bloated... but we 
also have to look at facts.  Right now AltME is running on my OS/X 
and when I compare it with Qtask, it is AltME that seems crippled... 
despite greater access to the machine...

In fact, it doesn't have a title bar, and I don't know why.  I resize 
it and as I resize I drag a rubber band and only see the effects 
of resizing when I release the mouse.  It is actually somewhat slow 
to start up compared to the browser...

In the meantime, the browser reflows everything per mouse move... 
looks clean, stylish... Qtask is innovating with the way it looks 
and they pull it all off in HTML/javascript...

Mac View was never on par with Windows one (minus resizing effect 
- weird on Windows too). Don't be afraid, I know the facts - I work 
as IT manager for semi-large pharma company here, and no REBOL here, 
I am not insane (yet :-)

btiffin: I don't know what Go Doc Go! means :)  But I will look at 
Cheyenne as an example of a good rebol app, if AltME is not enough 
to judge by.

Fork - but - you are discussing inefficiencies of View. Once they 
are fixed with View/VID3, all you have to compare is source code 
... and then the difference will matter, once soem js library is 
easily bigger than rebol core itself :-)

AltMe is "bad", because it is VID2 which does not respect some OS 
native behaviour. I say it for ages - ppl can forgive different look, 
but not different app deployment and usability.

OTOH - show me easily some app out there, which will let me chat, 
share, calendar, checklist, buglist, like AltME. There is plan for 
Altissimo - extensible platform. And I say - platform, not an app. 
The best REBOL app is REBOL/IOS ... but I am not sure who could invite 
you to visit such server ...

And just don't tell me - Qtask ... it is not there - it will never 
be so fast.

Pekr: well, y'know, it's not like x86 is anything beautiful to look 
at, but it just got defined and hammered on... eventually PowerPC 
got beat.  I do agree with aesthetic arguments, yet it depends on 
which area truly interests you... I know what goes on deep in the 
heart of my intel processor and I guess I sort of accept it because 
it's too far down for what I see... if it works, it works, and I'll 
replace it if someone has something faster.  But if a thousand monkeys 
wrote a better book than shakespeare, I'll read the book the monkeys 
wrote.  :)

My experience with the web is the more complex trhe page the longer 
the wait. There are sites I avoid because I hate the wait...and the 
browser seems to bog down the whole system. Rebol apps for me are 
instant. No waiting and they do  not bog down my system.

rebol developers are monkeys?

Amacleod - the biggest problem of View is the need to install. I 
say - as for R3, we definitely need plug-in - then you can do your 
app in rebol and ppl will stear how fast web app can be.