[Zope3-dev] Re: XUL, DHTML

[Jeff Shell]

There's nothing (as far as I'm aware) stopping you from using XUL for
your own Zope 3 apps - even replacing some or all of the basic ZMI
with it and then offering it as a management skin for Zope.

But for what it's worth - we've been working on a CMS in Zope 3 with a
custom skin for managing content. It's a pure CSS / DHTML layout.
Works great in Firefox and Safari both, but not in IE. It's hard to
convince customers not to use IE. Just like you're not going to
convince me to use Firefox daily on my Mac (sorry - Safari actually
acts like a Mac application, and Firefox doesn't. I don't mind using
Firefox, but it just not where I spend the bulk of my time).

Right now we (my company) can kindof get away with saying to customers
"Use Firefox, not IE". I'm not a fan of that answer though - our
customers shouldn't have to care, really, and I don't like telling
them they HAVE to use Firefox. Hell - I hated having to install the
'StaticTree' skin every time I played with Zope 3 during its
development phase since Safari didn't support the dynamic tree widget
in the Rotterdam skin until recent versions of Safari/Webkit.

Personally, I think these web UI things still tend to be very trendy -
Java Applets, Flash, XUL, DHTML/AJAX. It's always changing. SVG and
XForms still haven't really shown themselves as real contenders to
break us from what's already in place. So it's best that the core
support as broad of a range as possible and then through add-ons or
configurable layers provide support for flashier things. Those flashy
things will be done differently in a year or two anyways.

DHTML has gotten quite effective these days thanks to the prevalence
(finally) of some well written Javascript libraries and a
stable/mature enough web browser population that supports the
technology.

I think there was a proposal for smart widgets that could require
Javascript but have the supporting Javascript library loaded only
once..? What's become of that?

On 12/6/05, Fabrice Monaco <fmonaco at cirb.irisnet.be> wrote:
> For the backend (manage) this isn't problem. i have just one suggestion
> FireFox+xul+Zope is good ?
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Chris Withers [mailto:chris at simplistix.co.uk]
> Sent: mardi 6 décembre 2005 16:07
> To: srichter at cosmos.phy.tufts.edu
> Cc: zope3-dev at zope.org; Fabrice Monaco
> Subject: Re: [Zope3-dev] RE: Zope3-dev Digest, Vol 29, Issue 9
>
>
> Stephan Richter wrote:
> > On Tuesday 06 December 2005 09:44, Fabrice Monaco wrote:
> >
> >>Why not XUL?
> >
> > Because it sucks and is browser-specific.
>
> Be careful, or you'll have Paul in tears ;-)
>
> Chris
>
> --
> Simplistix - Content Management, Zope & Python Consulting
>             - http://www.simplistix.co.uk
>
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