[Zope3-dev] ZopeTop, xul, etc.

[Philippe Jadin]

[first posted on zope main mailing list, someone told me to post it 
here, sorry for the "cross post"]

Hi,

It seems there is currently work done on the future UI for zope3. I have 
some questions / comments on this

- Isn't it strange to use html to create a modular user interface? As I 
see it, html is not an UI definition language.

- is there currently active projects to build a fat client interface for 
zope using xul or other technology?



If html is not the right tool for the job, and if xul is really as good 
as it seems :

- zope should use an intermediate layer between the core logic / 
datastructures and the UI. This layer could be something like xul

- xul is xml, and as such could be "converted" to xhtml. The conversion 
would reduce a lot the usability (you cannot do everything xul does with 
html), but at least there would be a single source of UI definition and 
multiple implementations (simple html, "flashy" dhtml, pure mozilla xul, 
etc...).

- xul can be used directely in mozilla, providing a very powerfull 
client-side interface. I think it can be seen as a rapid interface 
developement tool.

In short,

zope core -> "html ui"    is not too good
zope core -> "something" -> html     would be more modular.

the "something" could be xul... or wathever, the point is "there must be 
something" :)

What do you think?

Philippe Jadin



ps : is it possible to contact the people currently working at the 
infrae sprint (irc?)?