Claus Wahlers of the Deng fame just posted this on his site. It's a way for the browser to display flash files from simple XML files. NO server-side processing.
You can see it in action here and read the explaination here.
Google decided to bot this page on Saturday, the 15th Feb and it being the web black out day, the bot was presented with this page, a flash version of my apolitical protest. The bot seemed a bit too offended with my page and now there is no reference to this site on Google. :(
While Flash naysayers might put this up as one of Flash's biggest disadvantages, the truth is that with some amount of help from Macromedia, Google should be able to index flash files. In fact there is a prototype on Google that does this but the results are terribly unpredictable. Now, if someone at Google/Macromedia could take this up a bit more seriously, Flash developers will have something to really cheer about.
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A few days ago I download the Laszlo Presentation Server (LPS). There had been a lot buzz about this product, which incidentally is only about two weeks old, and as per the email I received from them, has only had a closed developer release as of now. This explained why the download was not available freely on the site. Overall, my user experience with the whole process of getting the server and installing it was really good. The server itself is not too heavy (17 odd MB for the DR version which has Jakarta Tomcat bundled with it) and after I got it installed, I was able to get working with LZX files right away. The help on the site is not yet complete (they do warn you about this) but there is enough information to get you started.
Anybody who has used XML, and JavaScript/ActionScript before should be able to get a handle of LPS pretty easily. There are basic tags that define UI elements like <canvas>, <button>, <text> and <window> which help you build your application and new components or classes can be included (using <include>) easily extending the capabilities of the API.
The scripting language is ECMAscript based and since the definition is XML based, you cannot really use the less than and greater than signs, so all scripts have to be included into a <![CDATA]> tag, very much like SVG in fact. They have included a debug extension with the API so you can debug your application just like you’d use the trace function if Flash. There is no visual IDE, so you’ll have to use EditPlus or whatever your favorite text editor is to write out the code. Also since it’s all XML, you can also use XML spy to write out the code. I used my favorite – TextPad.
The version that I download uses Tomcat as the servelt engine, but I should imagine that it does work with any other Appservers as well.
I have not done any extensive testing on the server so I cannot at the moment comment on the performance and other issues with the server. But here is quick SWOT analysis that might help you:
Strength: There is currently a demand for richer web based applications and a lot of industry experts are touting that Flash would be filling in this need. Laszlo is betting on this increase in Flash based RIAs and hopes it would be seen as a more painless solution since they would not have to deal with complex and animation oriented IDE that Flash presents them with. Moreover the ability to use an normal to text editor to produce Flash applications would definitely strike a chord with the Linux community who have been desperately looking for an IDE for Flash.
Weakness: This is a server-based solution a bit like what Generator used to be. In fact my first though was that this would have been a natural progression for Generator had Macromedia continued the tool. However, Macromedia did not see Generator as a viable tool to continue, would Laszlo be looked upon in a different light? Also Flash is not a standard, if you’re looking at a Standards based Enterprise Web Application development market, it would have been worthwhile to port SVG as an optional delivery platform. On the other hand this is a servlet-based solution while a majority of the Flash development community work with PHP. Would they switch to Laszlo and a Tomcat/J2EE dev environment?
Opportunities: They currently do not have any commercial competition doing exactly the same thing. Macromedia has discontinued Generator and Ming is too obscure right now to be considered as a threat. So they definitely have made the move at the right time (can’t really call this an early move though.) Also there is definitely a move to have an XML based standard for defining the application UI, so using XML was definitely the right way to go.
Threats: There are other client based UI rendering vendors like Altio and Vultus, which do not require the use of a plugin for rendering the UI. Also there is of course, Flash, which has an active and loyal developer community and support from the mother ship for web application developers. Also around the corner are other XML based U definitions like WSUI and XUL, which are slowly getting more attention.
All in all, I do believe Laszlo has come out with an interesting product and anybody developing web applications should certainly download and test-drive the presentation server. However it is just too early to make any predictions. We will have to wait for the market to mature and see who survives.
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When a group of talented individual get together to form a software company, the product better be good.
Based on all the stir about Rich User Interfaces it does seem that the web application development community is looking desperately for a richer alternative/supplement to HTML, and will Laszlo we able to provide that? Can't say for sure. The marketing spiel does sound good, but will the product live up to it? Don't know yet. I've asked for an evaluation copy, and will post my comments here once I evaluate it.
Need to create some cool effects? Don't want to spend time browsing through math books and figuring out equations? Well, go in for the 'Flash API' ActionScript Library
It has been around for some time but Nacho has just updated it and looks good. Apart from that there is always Layer51 if you wish to go for class extensions.
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CHris MacGregor of Flazoom has devised an ingenious way to deter email harvesters from using posts on the websites to generate email databases. CHeck it out at Flazoom.com
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