runrev 4.0 - kudos and a gripe

[David Bovill]

Figured the field object would take a lot of replacing and good to know it
is being steadily worked on. While like others we'd love full text features,
I'd like to make a point about the development direction which is a bit
different. It's about using HTML and revBrowser for text markup.

It is pretty clear that as we move more and more towards "web applications",
what we now see as a text field becomes more and more like an iFrame or
piece of embedded xHTML. It is also clear that with the Rev web plugin,
developers will be making web pages with html content areas and areas taken
up by the plugin. What this means is that in terms of top level design we
are thinking about a world in which html text areas (aka text fields)
communicate with Rev widgets / plugins on a "page". This is why I'd be more
interested in getting the interoperability between the plugin and html areas
fixed and maximizing the usage of revBrowser than simply adding features to
the existing text field. We can get much of the formatting people want using
revBrowser - we just need it to work really, really well so it "feels" just
like a text field.

This is also the reason why we need the ability to have the web plugin to
talk to web page and vice-versa via JavaScript. That way we can design
applications that use revBrowser for the desktop app and the plugin talking
to the web page for the web site. That way we could / would be developing in
a way which works with the tide of web apps - and if we were involved /
aware of future plans regarding things like the text field could help steer
it in the right sort of direction / while planning our products to take
advantage of the features when they become available.

2009/6/28 Bill Marriott <wjm at wjm.org>

> In short, Rev 4.0 (along with revServer) will be our most significant
> release ever. It comes as giant leap after two years of steady, step-by-step
> advances. I personally see it as the most exciting news since the
> availability of MetaCard as a cross-platform solution for xTalk. This is not
> to say a new field is unimportant, but hopefully this post explains that
> this is about much more than just a pretty new logo.


What I'd like to see is much more marketing and development transparency.
I'd like to see a Rev development world in which as a developer working on
web / rev mashups I can easily find out what the future plans in this area
are and have my input. I'd prefer not to find out that the Rev Web Plugin
lack certain core features a few weeks before release, and I'd like to think
that by suggesting and discussing them with the community this input would
help RunRev ensure the new products are as good as they could be given the
resources invested. I don't think it is helpful that the "improve list" is
only open to enterprise customers like myself. That makes sense for support
but not for suggestions for improvement, and I don't think it is helpful to
not have discussed the plugin anywhere as far as I can tell, not even to
those like myself that paid out for a pioneer license.

It's a great and bold step that the new low end development environment is
going to be free. Its great that we have a web plugin, and the combination
looks capable of attracting many new developers. What I am arguing here for
is to involve these new developers in shaping the future of the product, and
not have the existing model of dialogue restricted to those on the improve
list and an inclination to use bugzilla feature requests.

While the coments above about JavaScript or "devlopment transparency" may
seem a bit geeky to some - its not. We need to build and attract a community
of both geeks, budding geeks and newbies. And many newbies will have come
from a world in which they know more about HTML, JavaScript and open source
projects than they know about Rev. We want them to feel that Rev fits into
this existing world of theirs, and one real cheap way of doing this is by
laying out a public development time line, and encouraging that discussion
with a bit more of an open source / crowd sourcing style to the marketing.