RSWT [SWT on top of RMI]

[Yigal Chripun]

Frank Benoit wrote:
> Yigal Chripun schrieb:
>> I want the ability to have a native GUI client connect to a server that
>> provides a service (Wweb browser, mail, Gmail, etc). basically all those
>> "web applications" like Gmail could be replaced by this.
>> I see it as a very powerful feature, especially given that in D it would
>> be trivial to use (No JVM you need to worry about, just run you exe
>> file) I think that that kind of a concept is avoided in Java mainly due
>> to the complexity of deployment. if you add something like MS's
>> clickOnce or Sun's Java Web Start to the mix, you'll got yourself a
>> winner. it'll be better than Adobe's AIR since it's native, and the
>> right click works!
>> this could be the thing that puts D on the map, like ruby on rails did
>> for Ruby.
>>
>> We do not need to create a full featured RMI like API for this, but
>> rather use Tango's IO.
> 
> Do i get your idea right? ...
> 
> The user gets a binary (.exe) to download, which contains e.g. a DWT
> application.
> 
> After starting it, this application can contact a service from a remote
> server. After the connection is established, the remote service can use
> the local DWT as GUI Frontend.
> 
> The remote service is also a D application.
> 
> OK, that sound interesting. But DWT is here only a nice showcase, not
> part of technologie, right?

this is more or less the general gist of it.
a good example to explain the possible use cases is Gmail.
currently its GUI is rendered inside a browser on the client side via a
javascript library. the end goal of the concept is to enable to /easily/
replace that javascript code (generated from Java by their toolkit...)
with a native client GUI made with DWT.
you press a link on the Gmail site and presto the native client is
downloaded and deployed locally so you can now enjoy a real UI that is
not limited to HTML just like any other desktop application on your
computer.
Just like Java web start only without requiring a huge JVM and which
actually always works, just like adobe AIR only not proprietary and with
the right click working, like microsoft's ClickOnce only cross platform
and open. And it'll give you a /native/ look and feel thanks to DWT!

DWT is a major part here since it provides a very clean API, D itself
provides for performance and ability to provide bindings for other
languages through its linkage with C (important for interoperability).

if you want to discuss this concept further I'll be happy to discuss
more fine-grained details.

--Yigal