in reply to HTML as a GUI: part 32,523rd

IE is the most common GUI platform out there. It is also the easiest platform to write for, at least for me, given that it's what I do for a living. (I write webapps on Unix to be viewed by IE6.)

My meditation on the subject (which seems to have kicked this spate off) wasn't intended on using IE as a replacement for Tk or any other GUI toolkit. I wanted to know the following things:

  1. Is this even possible?
  2. Is this practical?
  3. Are there any major holes this would expose?
  4. Are there any major holes this would be using?

The reason I wanted to know it was to create very small applications (utilities, really), primarily for myself and my wife. One of my major annoyances with my life is that I have Win32 at home, work on Unix, and can't meld the two. I can't really change the Win32 and don't have the time to get a stable LAMP box running. This would be an ideal compromise, in my mind.

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We are the carpenters and bricklayers of the Information Age.

Then there are Damian modules.... *sigh* ... that's not about being less-lazy -- that's about being on some really good drugs -- you know, there is no spoon. - flyingmoose

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Re: Re: HTML as a GUI: part 32,523rd
by flyingmoose (Priest) on Apr 09, 2004 at 13:23 UTC
    Why did you reject the concept of running a small perl based mini-web server and reject connections from 127.0.0.1? Then this cross-platform nature you are requesting would truly be achieved. Now, you're using an IE-ism that may not always work.
[reply]
      I haven't rejected anything because I haven't had time to try anything. My goal is to make it as easy to use as possible, without depending on Windows to keep my server up. If I can launch the webserver and IE and point it to the right page, all in one click ... perfect! If I can't, then I need to find something that will.

      Remember - my wife needs to be able to use this and she will refuse if it requires more effort than Quicken (or any other Win32 app).

      ------
      We are the carpenters and bricklayers of the Information Age.

      Then there are Damian modules.... *sigh* ... that's not about being less-lazy -- that's about being on some really good drugs -- you know, there is no spoon. - flyingmoose

[reply]
        If I can launch the webserver and IE and point it to the right page, all in one click ... perfect! If I can't, then I need to find something that will.
        I'd suggest installing the webserver as a system service, but there is no reason you couldn't check to see if an instance was running, daemonize the server if it wasn't and launch MSIE all from a launcher perl script. This is Perl, after all :)

        I think the advantages of being able to do real CGI would outweigh the pain of getting this working -- and then of course cross-platform is a freebie, so it ports nicely.

        really if you want a nice user interface though, with drag and drop, dialogs, and all the fancy GUI things that Microsoft and other non browser programs offer, the browser approach might not be the best way to go. Though you have domain knowledge in this area, it's a TON more straightforward to make a Tk application. And, regardless of what has been said about Tk, it can be made to look fairly clean -- especially if you make your own icons and adjust colors away from the default gray and stuff.

        Don't forget to look at webmin -- you might be able co-opt a good deal of web server code (if it's not heavily Linux centric), it's BSD licensed!

        To solve this I create an invisible frame that refreshes itself every second. Then I can simply send a small bit of javascript to this hidden frame that causes the main frame to reload itself. Already I'm getting in to portability issues having to use javascript.

        Maybe I'm just a stickler for design concepts, but this sounds really like a bad unmaintainable way to go. Applications shouldn't have to do this. So yeah, try the server, or bite the bullet and look at Win32::GUI or Tk or even Wx.

[reply]

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