Thoughts on Kevin's announcement

[Michael Kann]

As usual, Jim has provided us with a great explanation of how it all fits together. My first question: Why don't you gather up all your posts and put out a book? 

I just want to add one small addition. All the popular javascript libraries, jQuery et. al., are popular because they have built-in browser sniffing. Instead of heading to quirksmode.org directly, a person could either use or deconstruct those libraries to find out how to do it.

Mike

--- On Wed, 5/12/10, Jim Ault <jimaultwins at yahoo.com> wrote:

> From: Jim Ault <jimaultwins at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: Thoughts on Kevin's announcement
> To: "How to use Revolution" <use-revolution at lists.runrev.com>
> Date: Wednesday, May 12, 2010, 8:46 AM
> On May 12, 2010, at 6:03 AM, Richard
> Gaskin wrote:
> > 
> > RevServer, and even the existing Rev CGI engine, are
> great solutions on the back end.
> > But what goes in the browser?
> > It's still HTML, and for interactivity it means
> learning JavaScript.
> > That said, JavaScript is fun language, and as the only
> language natively handled in every browser it's well worth
> learning.
> 
> An essential element to using browsers successfully is very
> good power scripting for accurate browser detection. 
> The best resource online that I have found is QuirksMode.org
> to modify the HTML for the best result in the various
> browsers.
> 
> Also high on the list to study is the Adobe Flash detection
> scripts that show the array of detection logic paths
> required for a developer to deliver the best possible user
> experience in a browser.  Of course, you would not use
> Flash, but their detection algorithms are very complete.
> 
> The Rev community incarnation would be a library of
> routines that could be built by collaboration and updated as
> new versions of browsers hit the market.
> 
> There are huge advantages to using your RevServer account
> to host the functions you would require for your
> 'apps'.  One advantage is that variations in javascript
> between browser versions would have far less effect. 
> In this case you could use basic javascript code to trigger
> functions (eg. formatText.irev, parseArray.irev,
> errorCheckForm.irev) based on user interactions.  Now
> you need not learn everything about javascript and do the
> tricky stuff in irev/rev stacks/cgi
> 
> Some on the list may not realize that you can build a stack
> of many cards, then launch it on the RevServer using Rev
> cgi/irev so that its stack script is available
> momentarily.  Just add the stack to the cgi
> environment, build the scripts, launch it without using any
> User Interface (UI) objects, then access the fields,
> navigate the cards just as you would on your desktop. 
> After the cgi call is completed, the stack disappears from
> memory, but the idea is that its stack script functions
> returned a result that is sent back to the users browser to
> be displayed.
> 
> Theoretically, you could have one Rev stack for each web
> page you would own or support.  Or you could have a Rev
> stack containing all of the browser detection scripts, and
> this stack would be called/used for each ping from the web
> page.  The result is highly accurate HTML for each
> browser.
> 
> By sharing this development, those who know javascript
> could show how to build simple 'hooks' so that most of the
> heavy lifting would be in RevTalk
> 
> Of course, if you wanted to use zero javascript, your web
> solutions would be less powerful and more difficult to
> create.
> 
> Hope this helps.
> 
> Jim Ault
> Las Vegas
> 
> 
> 
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