IP: XUL the Extensible User Interface Language.

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

> From: golds () iname com
> Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1999 07:57:47 -0500
> To: farber () cis upenn edu
>
> I have attached a copy of an article that I think represents the most
> significant impact of XML on software development I have seen.  It
> introduces XUL, the Extensible User Interface Language.  
>
> The significance of this approach may be greater than the article suggests.
> XUL can potentially be applied to any application user interface, not just
> web applications.  The rendering engine (Gecko) can be run as a shared
> library rather than incorporated in every application.  This could also
> have a major impact on the portability of applications.  Typically, the
> most difficult part of porting a Windows application to UNIX has been the
> user interface.  Now it should be possible to have a platform independent
> user interface, defined in XUL.  If it really becomes easy to port
> applications to other operating systems like UNIX in a way that is
> transparent to users, this could have an effect on Microsoft and the value
> of their current monopoly.
>
> Dr. Richard Goldschmidt
> IT/EC Architect
> golds () iname com
>
> > From CNET:
> http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,34314,00.html
>
>
> Easing browser interface development 
> By Paul Festa
> Staff Writer, CNET News.com
> March 26, 1999, 11:40 a.m. PT 
>
> Browser engineers are cooking up a new way to create user interfaces that
> could have broad ramifications for application programming. 
>
> Engineers at America Online's newly acquired Netscape Communications unit,
> along with developers working under the auspices of AOL-backed Mozilla.org,
> have drafted the Extensible User Interface Language (XUL), which would let
> developers create a browser's user interface using common Web development
> languages.
>
> If successful, the move could fuel a trend toward creating more application
> components with Web languages, which have the twin benefits of being both
> cross-platform and easier to use than traditional application programming
> languages.
>
> Browser developers currently rely on standard, interpretive Web languages
> such as HTML and CSS to render content in a browser window, and programming
> languages such as C to create the graphical user interface, or "chrome."
> Chrome refers to the hard-coded features on the periphery of the browser
> window, including menu items, buttons, and the address bar.
>
> "XUL is our attempt to use the power of the layout engine to do all the
> chrome," said Mike LaGuardia, group product manager responsible for
> Communicator's Navigator browser. "We're using all of the standards we're
> supporting within Gecko to actually provide our engineers and potentially
> others working with this code base to create the user interface for
> Communicator and other applications as well."
>
> Gecko is the code name for the Communicator layout engine, or renderer,
> which was unveiled in a developer preview in December.
>
> XUL is based on Extensible Markup Language (XML), a metalanguage for the
> creation of other industry- or task-specific languages.
>
> The trouble with the current method of creating user interfaces is that
> native code has to be rewritten for every operating system AOL wants to
> support. That duplication of highly specialized effort is expensive and
> wasteful, LaGuardia pointed out, making XUL attractive from a bottom-line
> perspective.
>
> "This would mean that the UI could be written once and work across multiple
> platforms, and the level of knowledge that you need to do UI development
> becomes less arcane," LaGuardia said. "All you need to know is how to
> create a Web page, albeit a fairly sophisticated one."
>
> In the cross-platform arena, XUL resembles Sun Microsystems' Java
> programming language. But Java requires a bulky Java Virtual Machine to
> make native code understandable to multiple operating systems. XUL promises
> to be far more lightweight.
>
> Moving to the cross-platform XUL makes even more sense as AOL prepares to
> implement its "AOL Everywhere" strategy of making its online service
> available from alternative Internet devices such as handhelds and set-top
> boxes, which typically have distinct, slimmed-down operating systems. 
>
> But the nascent language, which AOL is considering sending to the World
> Wide Web Consortium for review as a Web standard, also could have broader
> implications for the future of application programming, according to its
> creators.
>
> "There's a trend toward using Web-building languages rather than native
> code," LaGuardia said.  "And we think this could really spark a programming
> revolution."