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> UI in HTML5/javascript/SVG I really hope this won't happen anytime soon. While everything's possible, HTML+CSS is a really horrible choice for UI descriptio

> UI in HTML5/javascript/SVG I really hope this won't happen anytime soon. While everything's possible, HTML+CSS is a really horrible choice for UI description, and the whole webapp stuf is a kludge. Webapps are only done this way because there's no other choice. Developers are running away to more higher-level abstractions, which provide things that are completely missing in bare HTML+CSS. For example, there are so-called layout managers, which are at the core of every sane widget toolkit, but in HTML world, are only emulated with plugins like jQuery.UI.Layout (or implemented it pure HTML+CSS by re-inventing lots of boilerplate code). Cappuccino and SproutCore have a very good reason behind them.

gord 16y ago
I [obviously] disagree.. while HTML DOM may be a mess, I think SVG + Javascript is a really nice way to do UI. The pain is almost all in the area of browser compatibility. I kind of agree with your point, in that I think there is a layer missing [ eg. to make resizable UI work well ]. But I think that layer is best implemented in Javascript upon SVG/DOM. As a comparison : I've used XCode's Interface Builder, and then thrown it away and written iOS UI Layouts by hand, and apparently Im not alone in this. Then I compare that to how much less code I'd need to write in Javascript for the same UI. [ I have implemented HTML5+js UI for iPad that looks like native Cocoa] Dont get me wrong, I think Cocoa is a good traditional API. But compared to SVG+js APIs such as Cocoa/QT/GTK feel incredibly verbose, slow to iterate and brittle, IMO.
- drdaeman 16y ago
  > But I think that layer is best implemented in Javascript upon SVG/DOM. Could you, please, elaborate on this choice? Why not, for example, Tcl/Tk? For a simple example, take a look at http://www.tkdocs.com/tutorial/firstexample.html http://www.tkdocs.com/tutorial/firstexample.html. I doubt it would be simpler in any combination of HTML+CSS+SVG+JS (and, for example, it would be problematic to have system-wide look-and-feel)

gord 16y ago

I [obviously] disagree.. while HTML DOM may be a mess, I think SVG + Javascript is a really nice way to do UI. The pain is almost all in the area of browser compatibility. I kind of agree with your point, in that I think there is a layer missing [ eg. to make resizable UI work well ]. But I think that layer is best implemented in Javascript upon SVG/DOM. As a comparison : I've used XCode's Interface Builder, and then thrown it away and written iOS UI Layouts by hand, and apparently Im not alone in this. Then I compare that to how much less code I'd need to write in Javascript for the same UI. [ I have implemented HTML5+js UI for iPad that looks like native Cocoa] Dont get me wrong, I think Cocoa is a good traditional API. But compared to SVG+js APIs such as Cocoa/QT/GTK feel incredibly verbose, slow to iterate and brittle, IMO.

drdaeman 16y ago
> But I think that layer is best implemented in Javascript upon SVG/DOM. Could you, please, elaborate on this choice? Why not, for example, Tcl/Tk? For a simple example, take a look at http://www.tkdocs.com/tutorial/firstexample.html http://www.tkdocs.com/tutorial/firstexample.html. I doubt it would be simpler in any combination of HTML+CSS+SVG+JS (and, for example, it would be problematic to have system-wide look-and-feel)