How time flies when you are having fun - EXTjs.com, jQuery and Backbase are some of the best frameworks avaibale now .. but that may very well change yet again. As the software technology moves pretty fast.

i don't know my 10 favorite books, but my 5 favorite series are harry potter, redwall, alex rider, diamond brothers, and artemis fowl

John,

I don't see how the solid browser detection code that is embedded in the Backbase engine makes Backbase a fragile platform. Developers working with Backbase can simply use our tags, and the Backbase engine ensures that they will work the same in all browsers.

Regarding usage of XPath: all targeting languages working with HTML have the same problem, whether you use the DOM or CSS selectors, they're all dependent on the structure of the HTML document. The benefit of XPath is that it's much more powerful, and most people using Backbase feel that our XPath implementation is one of the strengths of the platform.

In addition, developers can create their own custom Backbase tags, that are more semantically rich than HTML tags. You could even create your own XML document format, completely forgoing any HTML. An example is the b:window tag. Behind the scenes, these tags are of course translated to HTML, otherwise the browser wouldn't understand it.

Jep Castelein, Backbase

Outdated Article already.

I was curious as to how Backbase was able too meet their claim that they are 'Cross-browser' so I decided to take a peek at the technology. My conclusion is that Backbase is basically a just a hack that generates javascript a custom tag language. To get a feel for just how fragile this 'platform' is, one only needs to peek at the browser identification logic in the back ase code, here's a taste:

function L(){
var Fd=navigator;
var Fe=Fd.appVersion;
var Ff=Fd.userAgent.toLowerCase();
this.DOM=(document.getElementById&&document.createElement);
this.navigator=navigator;
this.appVersion=Fd.appVersion;
this.userAgent=Fd.userAgent.toLowerCase();
this.ie=(Ff.indexOf('msie')!=-1)?true:false;
this.ie4=(document.all&&!document.getElementById)?true:false;
this.ie4up=(document.all)?true:false;
this.ie5=(Ff.indexOf('msie 5.0')!=-1)?true:false;
this.ie55=(Ff.indexOf('msie 5.5')!=-1)?true:false;
this.ie6=(Ff.indexOf('msie 6.0')!=-1)?true:false;
this.ns=(Fd.appName.indexOf('Netscape')!=-1)?true:false;
this.ns4=(this.ns&&Fe.indexOf('4.')!=-1)?true:false;
this.ns6=(this.ns&&document.getElementById)?true:false;
this.ns60=(this.ns6&&navigator.userAgent.indexOf('6.0')!=-1)?true:false;
this.ns61=(this.ns6&&navigator.userAgent.indexOf('6.1')!=-1)?true:false;
this.ns7=(this.ns6&&navigator.userAgent.indexOf('7')!=-1)?true:false;
this.moz=(Ff.indexOf('mozilla')!=-1&&Ff.indexOf('gecko')!=-1&&Ff.indexOf('netscape6')==-1)?true:false;
this.opera=(Ff.indexOf('opera')!=-1)?true:false;
this.mac=(Fd.platform.toLowerCase().indexOf('mac')!=-1)?true:false;
this.mac=false;
this.xwin=(Fe.indexOf('X11')>0)?true:false;
this.compatible=this.DOM&&!(this.mac&&this.ie);
this.compatible=true;
return this;
}

Also, took a look at the online code sample at Backbase, and unless I'm missing something, the language makes use of XPath in an ass-backwards and fragile way... that is it is used to set values within the HTML presentation tags. The results is that one change to the presentation structure and all the XPaths break. XPath was intended to be used with validated XML structures, not unstructured HTML. This seems to me a very bad idea that will create a whole new generation of problems for developers. In fact, I get the feeling that the folks at Backbase are more intent on hiding the messiness and platform issues inherent in AJAX than actually solving any problems for developers or creating a development environment that makes any sense.

Only a version ago Opera couldnt use AJAX ~ no XMLHTTP support. Then there are theolder versions of all the other browsers, and the text-only browsers - all of which have varying support, if any at all for javascript and XMLHTTP ... I design for standards-compliance, usability and simplicity (for maintainance, readiblity, etc) - AJAX provide lots of wonderful things, but not on a wide enough scale. You cannot always design for the lowest-common denominator (like me), but what has really shitted me since I ever started using the internet back in the early 90's was the 'only supports IE', 'only supports Netscape', 'view in 1024x768+', etc etc ~ dont get me started on flash sites and their awful precursors - sites made entirely in imagemaps.

*bitchmoan

~ MaryMary

Backbase, a company specializing in rich internet applications, has published a whitepaper entitled 'AJAX and Beyond' to explain the Backbase Presentation Client, designed to interact with their Presentation Server.

They also have a Backbase Development Environment for Java and .NET. All of the products are expected to be available around the end of May 2005, with a current download being available in their developer section.

BPC leverages many of the more recent W3C standards as well as AJAX and a custom UI declaration language called BXML (Backbase eXtensible Markup Language) to create highly interactive web sites. There are a number of demos available that show Backbase Presentation Client in action.

The Backbase RIA solution has the following differentiators:

# Full commitment to web and internet standards (XHML, CSS, JS)
# Cross-browser and cross-OS compatible.
# No proprietary plug-ins or runtime virtual machines required
# Layout and look-and-feel can be fully tailored to your wishes
# Fast to learn: developers can reuse existing web (HTML) development skills

www.backbase.com

AJAX is nice, and using the Google tools is much improved to older HTML only interfaces. However, as noted in this article, the difficulty with writing AJAX that works across a broad range of browsers is not something to be underestimated.

That very issue piqued my interest in alternatives, and of those I've looked at, I really like [URL=http://www.openlaszlo.com]Laszlo[/URL]. Open source, very broad browser support with a consistent language and a truly rich user interface experience (take a look at the demos, and the Amazon demo in particular -- drag and drop to the shopping cart, sliding panes; attractive and responsive).

It's unlikely that AJAX, Laszlo or other currently available technologies will be the end-all solution, but I for one am very interested and excited about the capabilities that these technologies are enabling for user centric, web deployed applications.

Agree. Sure Google interface work/look great, but how much works has gone into them? While web interfaces can be pushed to be very interactive they will never match desktop apps. Companies are too quick to adopt web interfaces because they seem simple to develop and use. In fact, as UI becomes more complex, they become more difficult to both develop and use.

Here is a simple little example. User changes default list size from 20 items to 1000 items. Fine. Then user pops up a list with 1000 items. Still fine. Next he clicks the checkbox that select all items. Of course, it is a JavaScript ... you know what I mean. Well the PC is now frozen for about a minute running JavaScript that is selecting 1000 checkboxes?!?!?! I haven't seen the code, not sure how efficient it is or not. The point is that it doesn't scale very well.

AJAX is fine so long as you put proper thought, design and resources into it. Otherwise you'll end up with a very buggy interface.

Wether or not you use AJAX really depends upon the type of application you are building.
You could have a simple data entry form, where simple client side validations would suffice, and on the other end of the spectrum you could have an interactive chart, which would allow you to drill down and see details.
Refreshing or changing pages during such a drill down investigation would really be annoying to an user. If I can use AJAX here pull data asynchronously, this surely would lead to better usability!