[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] [OPEN-ILS-DEV] browser client update for 2014-04-23

[Rogan Hamby]

On Thu, May 1, 2014 at 8:32 PM, John Morris <jmorris at beau.org> wrote:

>
>
> So why bother with a web based client?  I only had to write a very small
> HTML5 app to realize it is a nightmarish moving target of pain.  Raise
> your hand if you would willingly use HTML/CSS/DOM/JS for anything if it
> wasn't the lowest common demoninator that everything reads in an almost
> but not quite incompatible way.  But it looks like most of those odd
>

I'm trying to make sure I understand what you mean here.  I think you're
confusing greatest and least common denominators.  The greatest common is
the highest frequency of the values in a set.  That's what you meant, right?

However, I would disagree with something implied but not stated here, that
the ubiquity of HTML5/CSS/Javascript isn't of value.  I think it is in fact
a value in development, especially in an open community where you hope to
draw in more developers over time whether to expand the pool or replace
those that drift off / taken up by the mothership.

platforms just got dropped from consideration as hosts for the new staff
> client, leaving only those that support the JRE.  Basically, newish
> Windows, OS X and Linux or the same as Xulrunner and the current client.
>

I'm not clear what the "odd platforms just ... dropped from consideration"
are.  Web browsers are a pretty wide spread platform.

If I'm just misunderstanding your phrasing and you're talking about Java as
a platform not being considered, Java was considered and there were several
proponents of it during the discussions that led to this path.  At least my
reading of the discussions is that it was considered a serious option.
 We'd have to qualify what defines a discussion to say how many but there
were multiple discussions via list and irc before the hack-a-way in
Michigan, the one there and some rehashing on the dev list and in irc
since.


> Not the worlds biggest fan of Java but it works, it isn't going anywhere
> soon, it is far more stable (both meanings, reliability and API churn)
> than any multi-browser web based platform yet deployed, fast enough for
> this purpose (certainly faster than XUL) and it is cross platform to the
> same number of platforms that will support a Java app running in the
> background.
>

I don't agree on the stability point but we can agree to disagree.



>
> > > Stackoverflow mentions that for Firefox you can manually set a config
> > > value that makes all printing silent but that would be generally
> > > horrible for so many reasons.  See a plugin for Chrome, a way to get
> > > ActiveX to do it for IE.... nothing web based though that isn't a
> brutal
> > > hack.
> > >
> >
> > Well, some people use this with Firefox to good effect at patron
> self-check
> > kiosks.  When used in the right context, it doesn't seem so horrible.
>
> Kiosks, self check, similar would make sense.  A staff workstation with
> a browser whacked to not allow picking destination or print options
> would generate.... feedback.
>
>
I'll let Bill address that point if he wants but I think that point of
discussion of the technology drifted off from the point that Bill is trying
to look at ways that give control over behaviors in the staff client, not
take them away.

Anyway, if underlying this is the fact that you'd like to do development
work on a staff client in Java I'd be curious to see what the results
looked like and what you thought the development lifecycle would be like.

-- 

Rogan Hamby, MLS, CCNP, MIA
Managers Headquarters Library and Reference Services,
York County Library System

“You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop
reading them.”
― Ray Bradbury <https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1630.Ray_Bradbury>

“You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit
me.”
― C.S. Lewis <http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1069006.C_S_Lewis>
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