IP: XUL the Extensible User Interface Language.

[Dave Farber <farber@cis.upenn.edu>]

>From: golds@iname.com
>Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1999 07:57:47 -0500
>To: farber@cis.upenn.edu
>
>I have attached a copy of an article that I think represents the most
>significant impact of XML on software development I have seen.  It
>introduces XUL, the Extensible User Interface Language.  
>
>The significance of this approach may be greater than the article suggests.
> XUL can potentially be applied to any application user interface, not just
>web applications.  The rendering engine (Gecko) can be run as a shared
>library rather than incorporated in every application.  This could also
>have a major impact on the portability of applications.  Typically, the
>most difficult part of porting a Windows application to UNIX has been the
>user interface.  Now it should be possible to have a platform independent
>user interface, defined in XUL.  If it really becomes easy to port
>applications to other operating systems like UNIX in a way that is
>transparent to users, this could have an effect on Microsoft and the value
>of their current monopoly.
>
>Dr. Richard Goldschmidt
>IT/EC Architect
>golds@iname.com
>
>>From CNET:
>http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,34314,00.html
>
>
>Easing browser interface development 
>By Paul Festa
>Staff Writer, CNET News.com
>March 26, 1999, 11:40 a.m. PT 
>
>Browser engineers are cooking up a new way to create user interfaces that
>could have broad ramifications for application programming. 
>
>Engineers at America Online's newly acquired Netscape Communications unit,
>along with developers working under the auspices of AOL-backed Mozilla.org,
>have drafted the Extensible User Interface Language (XUL), which would let
>developers create a browser's user interface using common Web development
>languages.
>
>If successful, the move could fuel a trend toward creating more application
>components with Web languages, which have the twin benefits of being both
>cross-platform and easier to use than traditional application programming
>languages.
>
>Browser developers currently rely on standard, interpretive Web languages
>such as HTML and CSS to render content in a browser window, and programming
>languages such as C to create the graphical user interface, or "chrome."
>Chrome refers to the hard-coded features on the periphery of the browser
>window, including menu items, buttons, and the address bar.
>
>"XUL is our attempt to use the power of the layout engine to do all the
>chrome," said Mike LaGuardia, group product manager responsible for
>Communicator's Navigator browser. "We're using all of the standards we're
>supporting within Gecko to actually provide our engineers and potentially
>others working with this code base to create the user interface for
>Communicator and other applications as well."
>
>Gecko is the code name for the Communicator layout engine, or renderer,
>which was unveiled in a developer preview in December.
>
>XUL is based on Extensible Markup Language (XML), a metalanguage for the
>creation of other industry- or task-specific languages.
>
>The trouble with the current method of creating user interfaces is that
>native code has to be rewritten for every operating system AOL wants to
>support. That duplication of highly specialized effort is expensive and
>wasteful, LaGuardia pointed out, making XUL attractive from a bottom-line
>perspective.
>
>"This would mean that the UI could be written once and work across multiple
>platforms, and the level of knowledge that you need to do UI development
>becomes less arcane," LaGuardia said. "All you need to know is how to
>create a Web page, albeit a fairly sophisticated one."
>
>In the cross-platform arena, XUL resembles Sun Microsystems' Java
>programming language. But Java requires a bulky Java Virtual Machine to
>make native code understandable to multiple operating systems. XUL promises
>to be far more lightweight.
>
>Moving to the cross-platform XUL makes even more sense as AOL prepares to
>implement its "AOL Everywhere" strategy of making its online service
>available from alternative Internet devices such as handhelds and set-top
>boxes, which typically have distinct, slimmed-down operating systems. 
>
>But the nascent language, which AOL is considering sending to the World
>Wide Web Consortium for review as a Web standard, also could have broader
>implications for the future of application programming, according to its
>creators.
>
>"There's a trend toward using Web-building languages rather than native
>code," LaGuardia said.  "And we think this could really spark a programming
>revolution."
>