Comments on: Post AJUG: AJAX & ThinkCAP

By: mray

mray — Sat, 25 Jun 2005 16:22:50 +0000

One small note regarding the back button: ''Do we really need it?' This is an application, not a page by page metaphor...' Often I see users thinking about the back button more like continuous 'Undo' rather than cancel. So as long as the button is shown in a browser window, a user's expectation is that it is a page-based system. Remove the button and expectations change, especially if you use common interface conventions used in most OS UIs. Also, if you want to see a crazy webapp, take a look at the Scalix demo for their web based collaboration software. It took some convincing for someone to make me believe that it wasn't a native app...bet it has a LOT of AJAX going on... and its apparently designed around Firefox ;0)

By: JesterXL

JesterXL — Fri, 24 Jun 2005 06:48:24 +0000

….aaaaaaand that’s why I do Flash. Don’t want to install anything? Fine, I’ll go find a client that doesn’t mind doing so (isn’t hard currently).

Keep in mind, the JavaHeads are all about the frameworks; thus ‘degrading graciously’ will probably be solved so it’s ‘good enough’; there WILL be some Java dude that’ll write 6000 lines of JavaScript to pool AJAX socket connections emulating how a server does it for threads, and he’ll compensate for DIV incompabilities on the client… they’re crazy like that.

I honestly do not think the designs that most web applications that the Java heads would do are that off the wall. The more developer I become, and the more form base projects I do, the less high end the designs become, so those browser incompatabilities really don’t become that big of a deal… but you still lose some of the cooler looking interactivity, branding, and overall experience.

Thank God for Flex.

By: keith

keith — Fri, 24 Jun 2005 02:01:11 +0000

hey jesse, nice to hear the Java heads are starting to fall into line. The thing that really gets me about ajax is the cross platform compatability. To me it seems the flash player has that so nicely wrapped up. Dont get me wrong, firefox is leaps and bounds better than netscape was, but there’s still compatablilty issues in the html/css implementations across platform and browser, and until thats nailed, developing a full app using ajax will be pain in the ass. Gmail is prime example – they had to write a plain text version to support some mac clients!! Dont get me wrong, i think its do great technology tho….