[mapserver-users] XUL Interface for mapserver app?

[Jan Hartmann]

I agree with Jean-Francois: XUL is impressive and could be the future 
for developing user interfaces for the web. I don't think it will be 
immediately useful for creating MapServer applications accessible to 
everyone, but if you have time to spare for research and development, 
you should certainly have a look.

Another point of Jean-Francois is of even more general interest I think: 
developing according to open standards (www.w3c.org). For myself I use 
Netscape 7/Mozilla as a reference browser to develop applications, and 
adapt those where necessary to Internet Explorer 5.5. (I like to use 
Netscape for its own sake too). IE is for the most part W3C compatible, 
but Microsoft has added tons of features which can be convenient but 
don't add functionality. The main real difference is in the Event model, 
but this is not particularly difficult to overcome by cross browser 
scripting. So if you develop from IE you will invariable end up with 
something that cannot be read by other browsers. On the other hand, 
developing according to W3C standards not only opens up the full 
potential of modern browsers (including IE if you put some effort into 
it), but also gives access to browsers like Netscape, Konqueror and 
Opera. I find this particularly interesting for the growing group of 
Linux end users. Of course older browsers, like Netscape 4 or IE 4 are 
out, so if you need to address those also, W3C standards are not for you.

A very clear introduction to W3C compliant programming (including IE5) 
is http://www.brainjar.com. It gives very good, simple examples of 
resizable windows and menus within a Web browser. It sure would be a 
cool thing to put MapServer maps into such an interface, and give some 
flavor of things to come with XUL.

Of course, this is just my personal point of view. It would be nice to 
hear other people's ideas about possible future directions for MapServer 
client side programming (JavaScript, Java, Flash, ... ?)

Jan Hartmann
Department of Geography
University of Amsterdam
jhart at frw.uva.nl


Jean-Francois.Doyon at ccrs.nrcan.gc.ca wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I was just curious, has anyone ever looked at implementing a mapserver
> application that uses XUL (http://www.xulplanet.com/) as it's interface?
> 
> Admitedly this would be (for now) specific to netscape 6.x+ and Mozilla, but
> this might also be handy for wireless applications on devices that use linux
> and mozilla at their core.
> 
> You could create incredibly cool looking and highly functional interfaces
> using full cross-platform and open standards, and put them right in the
> browser!
> 
> I just may play with this when I have some free time ... (In my next life)
> 
> Jean-François Doyon
> Internet Service Development and Systems Support
> GeoAccess Division
> Canadian Center for Remote Sensing
> Natural Resources Canada
> http://atlas.gc.ca
> Phone: (613) 992-4902
> Fax: (613) 947-2410
> 
>