Realbasic on the web without plugins

[Richard Gaskin]

Pete wrote:
> I guess that's what's been in my mind throughout this thread - we're all
> pointing out how difficult it is to do this but RB have done it.  I know
> nothing about other limitations of RB vs LC but it appears they have taken
> the lead in this one area.

In terms of perception, unquestionably.

But in terms of actually moving projects to the web, it would require 
that one of us here use it to determine the degree of flexibility it 
provides.

The video on the page linked to in the OP showed a relatively simple 
example, a master-detail form.

How many of us *haven't* done that?  Yes, that sort of thing can 
definitely be generalized easily.

But then we have things like the stuff folks build using Malte's 
excellent Animation Engine.  Can you write stuff like that in RB and 
have it automatically output the corresponding HTML/JavaScript/CSS to 
make it happen in a web browser?

Or consider Jim Hurley's wonderful rainbow refraction stack.  Or Richard 
Herz' Reactor Lab?  Or Glenn Fisher's RobinHood?

How much gets done on the server, and how much is done in the browser?

To what degree can we fulfill expectations of "putting LiveCode stacks 
on the Web" if all that happens is that the server reproduces static 
layouts as minimally-interactive pages?

Heck, how do you write a JS equivalent of LC's Geometry Manager to 
reposition things when the window gets resized?  And how to do translate 
the thousands of resizeStack handlers we've all written?

Doable, but not trivial.  Very, very expensive, and responding to resize 
events is just a small corner of the breadth of tasks such a translation 
system would need to address.

There are limits to what seems to be RB's approach.  The server is only 
half of the equation.  The user experience takes place in the browser, 
and all interactivity there is driven by only one language, JavaScript.

Confining the range of interactions that can take place in pages 
generated by such a system is easily doable by anyone with time and 
motivation using nothing more than the tools we have in our hands right now.

But to reproduce the full range of user experiences we can build in 
LiveCode inside of a browser is not a trivial task.

I could be wrong, but I'd be very surprised if that's what RB/Web attempts.

--
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World
  LiveCode training and consulting: http://www.fourthworld.com
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