oBrowser -- Is there a demand for this?

[CLIFFORD ILKAY]

Hi Bas,

One can build native mobile apps using purely JavaScript so I don't see 
how speeding up the Omnis core is going to make any difference for web 
applications. As for desktop applications, it seems pointless to me to 
have a parallel development effort just for desktop applications when 
the web is the new runtime.

The next big breakthrough in web applications is having languages target 
WebAssembly <http://webassembly.org/>, which just started shipping with 
Firefox. It is in the Chrome Canary channel already. Edge and Safari 
aren't far off. With the current revenue model of Omnis, it's unlikely 
that Omnis will ever target Web Assembly, which is not to say that with 
a different revenue model that things could not change.

As for the usefulness of oBrowser, if it's anything like the Chromium 
Embedded Framework XCOMP we've built for Studio 4.3.2.1 that enables us 
to embed CEF in an Omnis window, it's a great way to migrate out of 
Omnis. If oBrowser allows for bi-directional interaction with Javascript 
running in the control and Omnis, it would enable a developer to 
incrementally migrate fat-client windows to pure web windows that 
eventually have no need for an Omnis container once the last fat-client 
window has been migrated. If you've done this right, with that one JS 
codebase, you'll be able to build native iOS and Android apps and 
distribute it on desktop operating systems using Electron.

The days of JS being a toy language for a few animations here and there 
are long over. You can build something that is every bit as rich or 
richer than Omnis using modern Javascript.

-- 
Regards,

Clifford Ilkay

+ 1 647-778-8696


On 13/03/17 05:34 AM, Bastiaan Olij wrote:
> Hey Kelly,
>
> Very cool mate!
>
> That said, I do similar things in Omnis :P
>
> I do think HTML with a bit of Javascript is a more powerful tool for
> displaying complex data then Omnis is. Well at this point in time.
>
> I don't know enough about the optimizations the guys in the UK have been
> doing lately. Last time I talked about this with Bob (W) at EurOmnis he
> let slip that part of the focus of the 6.2/8.x rewrite was to optimize
> some of the internal core of Omnis. If that means faster
> creation/destruction of subwindows and better performance in redrawing
> the contents on the screen especially when there are many subwindows on
> the screen, then that balance may tip in Omnis' favor again.
>
> I like the look of your app btw!
>
> Cheers,
>
> Bas
>
> On 13/03/2017 7:08 PM, Kelly Burgess wrote:
>>> I’d like to ask the list if oBrowser is in use
>> Working on it.  Don't read too much into any of this, it's quite full of placeholders at the moment . . .
>>
>> This htmlcontrol lets me display phone numbers, emails and physical addresses in a single scrolling space, with expand/collapse buttons so I can show just the first one or reveal all the phone numbers, and everything else just pushes down and makes room.  Much more flexible than a complex grid object, since each row doesn't need to be the same height.  The mailto link behavior comes along for free with the proper markup, and those copy/edit/delete buttons only appear when you hover over their context space.  An add button appears when you hover over the categories.
>>
>>       http://www.kellyb.com/htmlControls/elasticGrids.png
>>
>> This htmlcontrol lets me produce a 3-D list, where I can expand a line and allow drilling down into many different related details.  Here I've expanded lines 3 and 5.
>>
>>       http://www.kellyb.com/htmlControls/3dList.png
>>
>> I think this is a great tool. One of the hover buttons for addresses will open another window with a google map of the address.  Not needing to leave Omnis to show web pages is a real step forward.
>>
>> Kelly
>>
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>