[ale] Looking for OS software.

[Joseph A Knapka]

"Tommie M. Jones" wrote:
> 
> I agree this is part of what I need.  However I was having problems with
> the Gui Component.  What I was looking for was something to have stored
> screen definitions on the server side.  By screen definitions I mean Forms
> (Field Entry), Tables (table listings similar to the main screen on most
> email clients) and events.  Whenever an event occurs such as leaving a
> field or pressing a button, all changed data would be sent to the server.
> Then the server will respond with either updated data or a new screen to
> be displayed.

It would certainly be possible to build a client
framework that accepts, say, an XML description of a UI, presents
it, sends user changes to the server, and accepts updates from the
server. I don't know much about XSLT, but I think it might be
relevant. Other than that, I'm not aware of any existing OS app
that works in exactly the way you want. You could get the "update
in place" and "send changes immediately" behavior on a web browser
using Java applets. It seems almost everything you want could be done
as a web app.

> In Gui development all this stuff is taken for granted, I assumed with all
> the client/server applications that are out there (Though that is nothing
> compared to the web-based applications that have taken over the open
> source movement lately)  there would be code that would already provide a
> core for this.

Actually I think it's fairly unusual to have an application in which
all changed data is processed immediately. Usually the user needs to
take some explicit action, like pressing an "OK" or "Save" button,
in order to have the UI data "committed", so to speak. That way
the user can recover from typing errors, etc.

> If anyone has any suggestions I would greatly appreciate it because I will
> probably end up writing this if I can't find it.

Cheers,

-- Joe
"I should like to close this book by sticking out any part of my neck
 which is not yet exposed, and making a few predictions about how the
 problem of quantum gravity will in the end be solved."
 --- Physicist Lee Smolin, "Three Roads to Quantum Gravity"

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