After HTML: GUI-ML? - Search Engine Optimization

After HTML: GUI-ML?: Posted by Next on March 14th, 2006; Hi folks,

Years ago, it occurred to me that a lot of the trouble
of writing web browsers is caused by the upside-down
arrangement of things: Javascript code exists inside
a document, when really it should be the other way around.
And yet, although this seems fairly obvious to me,
having tried myself to write a web browser and given up,
I don't see a lot of movement by major web browser
projects in a direction that might TRULY fix the problem.
I do see a few slow-moving projects: HTML5 and Web Applications.

These are not hobby projects however, and it does seem
that "industry" always has and always will have a
preference for messy, bloated applications and poorly
conceived standards because these things keep people
buying new computers and justify companies' existences.
We as consumers and/or hobbyists however should seek
a better solution, and create it ourselves if necessary!

I would suggest to fix the original problem. Here is my GUIML idea:
GUIML would encode essentially the basic features of a
modern GUI widget system, with enhancements to support
fancier features like animated sprites that you see in some web pages.
But basically it would reverse the fundamental problem with browsers,
namely bad design caused by the code-in-document flaw
that has led to enormous bloat and which has effectively
made many perfectly usable computers obsolete,
because web browsing is a vital app.

I would welcome any support or criticism of this
idea but first take a look below at a sample GUIML web design.
My initial idea is to simply take a familiar GUI like Motif or Java's
GUI
and use that as inspiration.

And, to set things right I would completely remove from HTML
any ability to run Javascript. HTML itself need not even be
supported but could be replaced with any number of
document formats such as RTF or something SGML based.

Imagine the following webpage:

<GUIML>
<head>
<title> Test </title>
</head>
<code>

</code>
<design>
<MainWindow> 
<PulldownMenu location=top preferredPointer="hand">
<Menu title=About code="javascript_about()">
</Menu>
<Menu title=Products>
<MenuItem code="javascript_callback1()"> First
</MenuItem>
</Menu>
</PulldownMenu>
<Frame name=main >
<Table width=100% height=100% rows=1 columns=3>
<tr>
<td><PushButton code="js_button_callback()" /> </td>
<td><Image code="js_img_callback()" /> </td>
<td><Document url="foo.html" /> </td>
</tr>
</Table>
</Frame>
<ScrollBar location=right type=vertical callback="js_callback2()" />
</MainWindow>
</design>
</GUIML>

Comments?
z808x@yahoo.com; Posted by Joseph Kesselman on March 14th, 2006; Something like this has been prototyped; look up IBM papers from the
1990's describing the Interactive Transaction System, which was a
styling-rule-driven user interface management system.; Posted by mbstevens on March 14th, 2006; Next wrote:
There is, in fact, server side javascript. I don't see it
very often -- doesn't seem to have caught on. But from what
you've said this may or may not be what you're really looking
for.

I can assume, then, that you've left the world of Windows/Mac
behind and have embraced free operating systems?

There is already flash, but it's hard to get standardization on
something like that if you want to support all kinds of
clients on all kinds of machines. Right now there are ways to
use flash and SVG and such in a way that degrades gracefully.; Posted by Jim Higson on March 14th, 2006; Next wrote:

How so? You seem to be saying the content should be contained in the
logic...?

I don't think web browsing requires a very modern PC. A friend of mine still
uses a 800MHz machine from about six years ago with no problems, and I have
a 233Mhz machine that runs Firefox pretty well for most sites. There are
computers older than that still working out there, but not very many, and
there are lightweight browsers such as Dillo (http://www.dillo.org) that
run fine on them.

Despite what Intel tell us, web browsing is one of the things a modern PC
doesn't do much better than an older one.

I don't think RTF will be popular for the web because it is difficult to
read and generate the code using scripting/templating languages. Besides,
it is set up for display on the printed page.

If you want to make older machines viable, at least base it on XML rather
than old SGML. XML is much simpler (and therefore faster) for the computer
to parse.

Using a table like this suggests you don't really understand the aims of the
standards you wish to replace.; Posted by VK on March 14th, 2006; Next wrote:
You missed the train :-) This way exists for many years already and
it's called "behaviors". Unfortunately for all these years the only
browser supporting it was IE. But now Firefox got the idea right. OK,
they called it "bindings" and transformed a simple structure into XML
mess - but it is all forgiven for the break through itself :-)

See my post (author "VK") at
<http://groups.google.com/group/comp.infosystems.www.authoring.stylesheets/browse_frm/thread/10e3360c3458471e>; Posted by Toby Inkster on March 14th, 2006; Next wrote:

Google: XUL.
Google: XAML.

--
Toby A Inkster BSc (Hons) ARCS
Contact Me ~ http://tobyinkster.co.uk/contact; Posted by Martin Underwood on March 14th, 2006; Next wrote in
1142354536.224320.60080@u72g2000cwu.googlegroups.c om:

I think the bigger issue with HTML and browser design is that it only
supplies *hints* and *suggestions* as to the formatting, rather than making
all browsers display a page with identical formatting, as PDF does. It would
be so much easier as the designer of a site if you could be confident that
everyone would see the same view of the page without the line breaks and
table column widths being variable under user control. Let users have a zoom
control (as for Acrobat Reader) it they need larger print but don't let them
change the font size independent of all other objects on the page; let the
site author retain full control over all other aspects of formatting,
typography etc.

This could easily develop into a debate about the philosophy of browers and
the web. I wonder if Tim Berners-Lee and the people that devised HTML would
still have designed it that way that it is in the light of people who are
itching to use it as a tightly-controlled page-format tool.; Posted by Jose on March 14th, 2006; No it wouldn't - don't be ridiculous. I don't give a hoot or a damn
what the web designer thinks I ought to see. The web designer in most
cases is a moron. I came to see the content, and I want to see it -my-
way. The web designer isn't going to buy me a new computer or monitor
to display their wonderous work of art (a luxury dead tree designers do
have), and they are mistaken if they believe that the only thing I am
interested in is their TV show. I am doing things. Often I am doing
things with their site and another program.

It's my goddamn computer!

Hmmph!

So if I want to be able to read the text, the picture has to balloon
too? And if I want to shrink the window so I can see my spreadsheet,
the pictures have to become postage stamps??

If you actually want me to =read= your content, let =me= choose the
formatting and typography. Let me turn off all the inane flashing
animations that steal my attention. Let me navigate back and forth at
will, my way.

Do you ever browse the web as a =user=??

Jose
--
Money: what you need when you run out of brains.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.; Posted by Carolyn Marenger on March 15th, 2006; Martin Underwood wrote:

I was thinking about developing a new hardware device allowing a user to
plug into a free USB port, and having the information appear within the
users neurons. Then, I don't care what screen size they have, i don't even
care if they can see. My page is plunked right inside their brain, and
they get all of the content just the way I want them to.

Yet another layer of sarcasm...

Carolyn
--
Carolyn Marenger; Posted by Toby Inkster on March 15th, 2006; Martin Underwood wrote:

If you want PDF, then *use* PDF.

Yep, I think they would have.

--
Toby A Inkster BSc (Hons) ARCS
Contact Me ~ http://tobyinkster.co.uk/contact

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