A native Laszlo browser: crazy idea?

[jamesej]

Hi

I think there should be a native .lzx browser. I am imagining (dreaming?) of a windowsforms .Net standalone app / component that would take an .lzx file plus resources and build it into a front end. It would be I imagine hundreds of times faster than running an app under Flash or DHTML. It shouldn't be too hard to write code to build an object tree from a .lzx file which then renders itself. The ECMA script interpretation would be a little more tricky...

I'd write one myself if I thought I could make money out of it...

James

[trucker_]

That's a good idea but you lose the benefits of the flash players already installed around the world...

[edutf]

I have been thinking about this idea last months and I got to the opinion that it would be really nice but it would take a lot of work for the first release. But instead to create a native browser I was thinking to create an ActiveX component (it could be integrated to the browsers) or really a plug in.

The script processor isn´t that hard. We have a lot of open sources java script processors like Rhino.

This concept, maybe loose some functionalities of the Flash player, but also make it possible to add a lot of new concepts.

-> it could be used by Java and C/C++ Stand Alone Applications (not just web)
-> It would make everything a lot faster (only lzx files would be downloaded).
-> It would make a lot of new concepts available to laszlo. Concepts that cant be added because the limitation of the Flash player, some of the concepts that I had already think about are:

-> Create a laszlo tag similar to the Applet tag in the HTML. (it would make possible to do a really nice integration with java for those who ask for java language (not scripts) in laszlo).

-> We could add OpenGL (standat 3D API) features in this plugin (native browser) and add tags to use 3D poligons.

-> If we use plugin it could have a better integration to the browser. (imagine if u can access the objects of the HTML page inside laszlo and vice versa).

-> And more... if we dont have to compile to Flash, if the browser interprets the lzx xml straight, it would make possible to dynamically create more laszlo code at run time. You would be able to change the XML (DOM) of the code at run time. It would make the language more powerful.

[l0gin]

Hi,
On OpenLaszlo, everything you do using tags can be done dynamically, via javascripting : creating components at runtime ( new canvas ? =D )
So the final swf will be lightweight but it will cost to you, developer more effort.
And for what ? Dynamisme =D

My OpenLaszlo application replicates my database, if I want something more or fix something, I just have to modify database structure directly. Lzapp will take care of.

For now, i'm trying to make only dynamic scripting.

BTW We can see two kind of dynamism:
1/ dynamic data consumming
2/ application structure created dynamically + 1/

It's kind of a footprint.