I am considering using a web application in place of a traditional UI to control an imaging system. The UI will allow the user to do things like change settings, upload scripts, start/stop data acquisition, view data, etc... Rather than a monolithic UI that "does everything", an embedded controller would interact with system hardware and control the process, receiving commands from the UI over a local network.
I would probably use a javascript toolkit or perhaps some .Net technology to build the web application. A few of the advantages I see are:
Access UI from any browser.
No software to install.
Access remotely if necessary.
View status/data from multiple computers simultaneously.
Modular (separation of concerns)
Data as a web service.
A few of my concerns would be:
Lack of a comprehensive widget toolkit.
Supporting multiple browsers, this may not be as bad as I think now with HTML5.
Updating the UI from the server.
My questions are, Is this common? Is it a bad idea?
If it's really subjective, I understand, however, I just wanted to see if there is an obvious answer, like "DON'T DO IT!!!!"
It is very common. I do it all the time, particularly for a closed community of users such as you will have.
It might be different if this was a public facing device, but it is not.
You are going to support more devices by saying "you must have an HTML 5 browser" than if you said "You must have a PC" or "You must have a Mac"
In terms of your concerns, I do not see any of them as being an issue.
It is easier to deploy a UI upgrade once to the imaging controller than many times to all of the client machines.
There are all of the widgets that you could ever want available for HTML 5 compatible browsers
You answered your own question about cross browser issues. HTML 5 browsers are free so there is no downside for people to upgrade to them and you have the entire weight of the world wide web pushing them to upgrade to take advantage of what can be done with HTML 5 so users have a big incentive to upgrade. I do not run into any push back when I require a closed group to use an HTML 5 compatible browser. And if you want to be kind to those that don't have html 5, you can always use modernizr.
It is a good idea - and there is plenty of examples and ways of doing what you want to do.
Related
I dont know enough about smart watches but i figure that at some point, browsing web sites on them will become a standard feature. The "Web Browser for Android Wear" app on google play has more than 100,000 downloads and the "WebBrowser for SmartWatch" app has more than 10,000
To that end, given that smart watches like Sony's SmartWatch 3 has a 1.6” screen, what should web designers need to take into consideration when making their web pages as portable as possible? Is there a set of standards? What kind of functionality and behaviour should one expect of a page displayed in a smart watch browser?
Although SO isn't the best place for this question, I'll chip in. As far as I know, designing for wearables is still a new thing, and as per say, I haven't come across any standards as such.
But I think responsive web design should do just fine.
People are working on designing websites for smart watches. Here.
However, think about using the standard manufacturer APIs to build more robust and interactive experiences than just relying on websites on tiny screens.
Here's an article from Net Tuts+ that shows you how to design for the Apple Watch using existing web technologies. Bear in mind it doesn't beat native at all.
Is it true that web browsers as we know today have no future? That programmers should write native clients for their application on many devices?
I'm writing web application with AJAX but should I also prepare versions to many mobile devices?
The web will be around and web browsers are available on almost any device. Some say native development is the future, because it is closer to the device and gets the most out of the system. This is true and is applied in various cases, like XBOX games and Apple software that is especially designed for a single device.
Other developments show the other side. Google's OS is barely more than a webbrowser. All applications running on it are merely web applications that should run on any browser. Only difference is that the engine of Chrome OS is put directly onto the hardware, allowing the webpage to get a better performance, because it has only one abstraction layer to the hardware instead of 3 or 4.
So, the only advice I can give is not to worry about it. People on either side have been declaring the other technique to be dead since decades ago, but both are still here. When it is time to switch, you will know. :)
The first statement is definitely not true.
The second one depends on your case, but most things you can just do "mobile-browser friendly". I.e. make a mobile version of the website that looks good on mobile browsers. No need for mobile applications.
Of course, if you have the resources, a mobile app is a good addition to your portfolio / brand.
First of all no one knows and no one can know what the future will bring.
For me though, it is difficult to imagine a world without web browsers at least in the near/mid term future, especially with all the hype/support behind HTML 5.
The big advantage is of HTML 5 in this regard is write once, run everywhere.
My 2 cents ;-)
If anything, it is the other way around. Make a good web application, and everyone can use it. Mobile browsers get better and better all the time. Expect mobile website usage to increase, rather than custom applications for each device. (obviously, applications that need hardware access are not included in this statement.)
Furthermore, expect a convergence between mobile web and desktop web.
What's your experience in using web technologies (HTML, XML, CSS, JavaScript) to implement part of the functionality of a GUI application? Pros and cons, please.
No servers, relational databases, AJAX, or cookies for session management, nor an existing webapp either, but rather a GUI app that uses web widgets (like Qt WebKit) to render and handle substantial parts of the UI, while taking advantage of a GUI framework to achieve an even richer interaction and better desktop integration.
I've already validated that the approach is possible using PyQt. Content can be rendered from the file system or from strings, and URL requests (images or clicks) can be captured and served by the form's event handlers. CSS and JavaScript are supported, perhaps with some limitations.
# ...
self.webView.page().setLinkDelegationPolicy(
QtWebKit.QWebPage.DelegateExternalLinks
)
#...
class TotiMainWindow(QtGui.QMainWindow):
def linkClicked(self, url):
pass # events arrive here
Note: This question is different from this one and this one made before, among other things because there is no requirement to use web technologies on the GUI, but there is the requirement that the application should work without a network connection available, and should integrate well with the default desktop over different platforms, without previous infrastructure requirements (no .NET, Java, browsers, or database servers).
Note: I posted a different version of this question on PMS but found very little experience with this approach there.
Closing Note
I just found most of the information I was looking for in a series of blog posts by André Pareis.
I think the largest advantage to using web markup like HTML/CSS and other web technologies is that desktop apps may very well have their days numbered.
As we speak, Google engineers are working on the Chromium OS, which essentially consists of a single GUI application... the browser...
Now, while nothing may never actually come of it, there is clearly a rising trend in the number of applications accessible through a web browser, accessible anywhere. It seems to me that this is the future of application development.
By using these technologies, this becomes one less headache you have to deal with when or if you determine that your app should be available as a web application.
Update: A few years ago, we developed an Agent Desktop for our call center that is essentially a local application that opens sockets to integrate with the phone system. The user interface the agents use is built with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, and the experience is stunning. When we released our latest update in 2010 with a professional CSS redesign, our agents were all very impressed with not only how easy it was to interact but also how easy it was to use.
In the future we will port this 100% to the browser, but for now it needs to be a local application because of the COM integration with the phone system.
We did exactly this for a project back when Windows XP was new.
This gave my team several benefits:
A good-looking UI with relatively little effort
Easily change the style of the UI in a consistent manner using CSS
Relatively simple integration with C++ (invoking functions from the ui and vice versa)
The drawbacks we saw were:
Some not-so-good firewalls considered accessing internal resources (ie other html pages in the ui) to be a web request
Adding and accessing the needed resources could in some cases be a bit cumbersome
It was possible set properties in Internet Explorer that would prevent JS from running in the application
Note that some of Windows XP:s programs are using this approach.
This probably works best with small, more Wizard-like parts of the ui (which our ui consisted almost entirely of).
I have since then not really been involved in ui projects, so I cannot really tell you whether this approach is still valid... I know that MFC-based applications will let you use HTML-based dialogs though.
In a similar situation in 2005 I created a stand-alone webapp using XForms, CSS, JavaScript, XML and XML Schema for offline data retrieval and verification. With a good XForms -> HTML + JS transformer (Chiba) it did the job with no bug fixes after the initial release. It was used for 6-12 months (IIRC) by about a dozen engineers for a project gathering test data in the tunnel of the Large Hadron Collider. The biggest surprise of that project was just how much you get for free when going for a web platform, even for offline use. Highly recommended.
The major problem is that it reduces your development speed, or the quality of your user interface. A lot. Unless you're using Seaside, it is much faster to develop a desktop app.
There is quite some number of applications built on top of Mozilla platform. It isn't 100% web technology, as instead of HTML you use XML based XUL, but the rest is indeed web stack (JavaScript, CSS). The most successful of these it the OpenKomodo and it's commercial big brother Komodo IDE.
On the other hand, as far as Qt goes, the newest version 4.7 you can build GUI using QML language. Don't let the name mislead you, it's not markup, it acctually JavaScript with app-specific extensions.
The question says it all, we know most of the hosted web-based UI prototyping tools out there, but we would like to have ours hosted on our own internal servers, preferably with on-line multi-user collaboration functionality (i.e. users modifying the prototype, making comments, etc. in parallel).
Any suggestions will be appreciated.
Sketchflow (in the top-end version of Expression Blend from Microsoft) meets almost all your criteria. It ain't cheap, but it is very powerful.
The deployment package of a Sketchflow build can just be placed on an internal server (no IIS required to deploy).
Multiple users can overlay their comments and pen drawings over the top of the screens. Their feedback is packaged as a unit and sent back. All feedback can then be loaded back into the Expression Blend project and the feedback from 1 or more users viewed overlaid on the correct screens.
It does not meet your multiple-user authoring requirement though, but as they say "too many cooks...".
Most tools are either desktop based or hosted. Seen very few which offer a downloadble multi user version. iRise is one choice with the editor as a desktop product and a centralized server for sharing among users. The budget is typically from $50K to $250K. A similar option exists for Serena composer as well, not sure of the price though.
Both iRise and Serena are not real collaborative tools, the central server is only for sharing the finished prototypes and getting feedback.
If the requirement is for a completely web based multi user tool then 10screens can be an option - http://www.10screens.com. The same product available on the site in a hosted mode can be downloaded and installed on your own servers.
I'm a junior VB.net developer with little application design knowledge. I've been reading a lot of material online regarding different design patterns, frameworks, and methodologies. It's become a bit confusing for me.
Right now I'm trying to decide on what language would be best suited to convert an existing VB6 application (with SQL server backend.) I need to update the UI and add more user functionality and reporting capabilities. Initially I was thinking of using WPF and attempting the MVVM model for this big project. Reports would be generated from SSRS.
A peer suggested using ASP.net and I don't have enough experience to determine what would be better. The senior programmers here are stuck on using VB6 and don't have any input on what to use. They are encouraging me to use the latest technologies.
This application would be for ~20 users in a central location. Ideally I would stick to a Microsoft .net language. Current interface is similar to a datagrid table where the user would click in to see the detail of each record. They would need to have multiple records open at any given time.
I look forward to all the advice I can get.
EDIT 2010/04/22 2:47 PM EST
What is your audience? Internal clients within an intranet
How complex are the interactions you expect to implement? not very... displaying data from SQL server to UI. Allow user updates to said data. Typically just one user modifying a record.
Do you require near real-time data updates? no
How often do you expect to update the application after the first release? twice/year
Do you expect a well-defined set of client platforms? Yes, windows xp environment, potentially upgrading to Win7. Currently in IE.6 moving to IE7 or 8 within a couple of months.
Do users need access from anywhere? No, just from their PC.
What would be wrong about building a simple ASP.Net application in VB.Net using Gridviews for allowing the data access and manipulation? Seems like a simple ADO.Net trial application if you aren't familiar with it in the beginning you will be by the end. CRUD applications are pretty common so it shouldn't be too hard to build it and then refine it as more requirements become apparent.
Sounds like you need to use a web-based solution--this eliminates alot of your potential distribution woes with multiple users. You could use silverlight, but if you are locked into SSRS, this might not be the way to go.