Category Archives: web authoring

internet, software, software development, web authoring

Google’s new model of app development

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I was fascinated by this slide shown at the recent global developer day, which I’m reproducing with Google’s permission:

Four blocks captions Ads, Standards, Mashups, Open Source

The image doesn’t make sense without the caption, which I’ve used as the title of this post: The New Model of App Development. You can see the slide in context in this Register piece. Two things in particular interest me. One is the appearance of ads as an integral part of the development model. This makes sense for Google’s own development, but does it make sense for others? Given that much of the software industry is slogging away at internal business applications, that seems a stretch. It may be true for consumer apps. Ad-funded applications have not been a big success on the desktop, but we have somehow become tolerant of ads flashing round the screen when working on the Web.

Another issue is one we tried to capture in the caption for this image at the Reg. The main goal of developer day was to get developers to integrate Google services into their applications, by using Google Maps and the other APIs on show at Google code. The company is even keen to host your gadgets on its own servers. Google wants to be an indispensable building block in app development, even though it left itself out of the illustration.

How about open source? Google uses and sponsors open source software, and has posted the code for Gears, but where’s the code for Docs & Spreadsheets? Closed source is an important part of Google’s own app development model, as it is for most others.

internet, software development, web authoring

Adobe Live in London – quick report

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I attended Adobe Live yesterday. This was in two parts, an exhibition with a schedule of presentations/tutorials, and a developer day focused on Rich Internet Applications – Apollo and Flex – as well as ColdFusion 8.

I’m told that around 1800 attended, though most of these were for the main exhibition, whereas I spent almost the whole day in the developer sessions.

It was a worthwhile though low-key event and I picked up some insights into Apollo and Flex 3 as well as getting an update on ColdFusion. I’ll be reporting in more detail shortly. A couple of quick comments though.

First, this struck me as primarily a designer crowd, Flash folk interested in applications, rather than developers new to Adobe. These are just impressions so I could be wrong, but it strikes me as in interesting issue. Equally, when I went along to Microsoft’s Mix07 earlier this year my perception was that many delegates were primarily Visual Studio folk interested in web design, rather than vice versa. If I’m right, Adobe and Microsoft have inverse cultural and marketing problems here. Still, at least Adobe put on a proper developer schedule this year; it didn’t exist at last year’s London event.

Second, I found the Apollo stuff though-provoking in the light of Google’s Gears announcement as well as what Microsoft is offering with WPF. I knew that Apollo was sandboxed, but hadn’t appreciated the extent of the sandboxing. As I understand it, Apollo apps can do file i/o on the local machine, but in other respects it is locked down in a similar way to web apps running in the browser. There is no access to external libraries, OS scripting, or custom native code extensions.

That’s good from a security perspective, but it limits the extent of OS integration. So the key question: if you can’t integrate with the OS, beyond a few trivia like Start menu or Dock shortcuts, then why bother with a desktop app? Especially now that Gears has a solution to the offline problem. Maybe it is worth it just to get out of the browser window, but some at least will not see the point.

Third, I asked what if anything Adobe intends to do with Google’s open-source Gears code, but apparently I may not have the full story yet – more when I get the information.

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internet, software, software development, web authoring

FireFox team not sure about Google Gears adoption

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During Google Developer Day I had the impression that Mozilla was right on board with Google Gears, the plug-in which which enables offline applications. Here’s Aaron Boodman and Erik Arvidsson from the Gears team:

We are releasing Gears as an open source project and we are working with Adobe, Mozilla and Opera and other industry partners to make sure that Gears is the right solution for everyone.

It seems that things are not as clear-cut as Boodman and Arvidsson imply. LinuxWorld.com quotes Mozilla’s Mike Shaver:

We’re talking to Google engineers and looking at how these two models — ours and theirs — compare. This is in the open now, and going forward we’ll see what we can learn from each other,” Shaver said. “But there’s a lot of work that’s been done already [on Firefox 3.0], and we’re not planning to throw that work away.

According to the article, Shaver is particularly doubtful about using SQLite for persisting web application data locally, and is inclined to stick with the more limited DOM Storage API already planned for FireFox 3.0.

A related point is that Adobe’s commitment to Gears is not absolute. Here’s Adobe’s Michele Turner says, quoted by David Berlind:

…For example, they’re using SQLite and we were already incorporating SQLite into Apollo. So, now we’re aligning our efforts with Google on things like the synchronous and asynchronous calls that must be made to the SQLite database in order to enable the offline capability. 

My impression is that Adobe is aiming for a measure of API compatibility, but will ship its own build of SQLite rather than using one installed by Gears, with inevitable version and customization differences.

There is a world of difference between using a similar API on the one hand, and sharing common components and/or common source code on the other. It looks to me as if Apollo, FireFox and Google are going to provide three independent and isolated mechanisms for handling local storage.

Of course Gears installs into FireFox anyway, and there is nothing to stop Flash developers from using Gears.

I will quiz Adobe on this subject at tomorrow’s Adobe Live event.

internet, software development, web authoring

Google: Don’t let your kids use Gears

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More Google Gears Terms and Conditions madness. Gears is licensed under New BSD terms; yet before you can install the runtime you have to agree to onerous terms and conditions. Here’s clause 2:

2. Accepting the Terms

2.1 In order to use Google Gears, you must first agree to the Terms. You may not use Google Gears if you do not accept the Terms.

2.2 You can accept the Terms by:

(A) clicking to accept or agree to the Terms, where this option is made available to you by Google in the user interface for any Services; or

(B) by actually using Google Gears. In this case, you understand and agree that Google will treat your use of Google Gears as acceptance of the Terms from that point onwards.

2.3 You may not use Google Gears and may not accept the Terms if (a) you are not of legal age to form a binding contract with Google, or (b) you are a person barred from receiving the Services under the laws of the United States or other countries including the country in which you are resident or from which you use the Services.

I’m puzzled. If Gears is BSD licensed, how can Google insist that the mere act of using it binds me to these terms (which I dislike for other reasons too)? And 2.3 is bewildering: you may not use Google Gears apps if you are not an adult?

What if someone else installs Gears on your machine, and you then use a Gears-enabled app? How can terms like this possibly apply in such cases? Note that the agreement does not refer only to installing Gears, but specifically to using Gears.

By the way, you can download the source for Gears, and compile it if you can figure out how, without assenting to any such agreement.

I think Google is letting its legal team get out of hand.

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internet, microsoft, software, Uncategorized, web authoring, windows

New Live Writer is out

Beta, of course. But since this is my favourite offline blog authoring tool, I’m taking a break from Google posts to mention it here. You can download it here – I’m using it to write this post. The official blog has a list of new features.

Do they amount to much? Inline spell checking (wiggly underlines) is great, except that it still seems to be hard-wired to US English. I like Paste Special, particularly as I’ve had problems pasting from Word in the past, with Writer inserting annoying font tags (something to do with using the embedded IE editor, no doubt). That said, I’ve just tried a paste from Word and it worked fine, so perhaps this is fixed too. Synch between local and online edits is neat – when you retrieve a post from Live Writer’s local cache, it updates it from the online version, so that it is now safe to edit in either location. Writer also exposes a richer set of properties, including Excerpt. There are a bunch of other changes that don’t matter much to me, such as Sharepoint support. Table editing? I don’t generally use tables in blog posts, but it could be useful.

On the minus side, Writer has sprouted an odd extra toolbar so that you now have three rows above the working area: menu, toolbar, and editing toolbar. That looks cluttered and unnecessary. There’s the spelling problem mentioned above. And as for this, words fail me:

 

Overall, a useful but low-key upgrade.

Update: Graham Chastney has a hack to fix the US spelling.

internet, software development, web authoring

Google’s offline problem

Here at Developer Day I attended the workshop on new Maps API features. Unfortunately I was one of the last into the session and could not connect to the internet. I suspect a problem with IP number allocation but I don’t know for sure. I spend some time trying to get it working, then gave up and returned to the blogger lounge, where the wi-fi worked perfectly.

A let-down; yet nicely illustrates the reason why we need Gears.

That said that, even Gears isn’t going to enable offline Geocode lookup.

Next up is the session on Gears.

 

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internet, software development, web authoring

Google Developer Day begins

I’m early to the London event; but registration is open and I get a flimsy red bag with oddments including a tin of “Goo” which turns out to be thinking putty. The event is at The Brewery in the heart of the City. We are ushered into the Blogger Lounge – stylish, with bright-coloured cushions, soft pastel lighting, fresh-squeezed orange juice and no chairs. A quick glance around the room tells me that Macs outnumber Windows by about 4 to 1.

The event will kick off with a keynote from Chris DiBona “Developer message” and Ed Parsons “Geo Message”. Then I’ve got API workshops – lots of AJAX and Maps – and closing with another keynote live from Mountain View.

I’m already familiar in a broad sense with Google’s developer offerings, but what is the strategy? Getting closer to that is one reason to be here. The other to assess how useful all this stuff is in the real world – to developers that is, rather than to Google.

Delegate using laptop station at Google dev day in London

More as it happens.

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blogging, web authoring

Offline blog authoring with Word 2007

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After writing a blog with Adobe’s Contribute, part of the new Creative Suite, I thought I should try the same task in Microsoft Word 2007. It’s quite a contrast. Word does not attempt to display the surrounding furniture of the blog, so it feels less cluttered than Contribute, and you get the benefit of Word’s proofing tools. The famous Office ribbon is reduced to three tabs: Blog Post, Insert and Add-Ins; ironically, the only add-in available is Adobe’s Contribute toolbar. It’s a comfortable editing environment, but it does not feel safe. For example, I can insert a WordArt text object, or shapes of various kinds, but it’s not clear what sort of code it will generate, and as with Contribute there is no easy way to view the HTML.

Another problem with Word is the lack of any Insert Tag option. A Technorati tag is just a hyperlink, so I could do this manually, but that is extra work in comparison to Contribute or Live Writer, which have Insert Tag built in. Word does offer an Insert Category button, but you can only select one category each time you drop down the list, whereas in Live Writer you can add multiple categories in one operation, by checking boxes.

I can see the appeal of blog authoring in Word for someone who is familiar with Office and does not want to learn a new tool, but this is my least favourite of the three tools I’ve been trying. So far I prefer Contribute for its features, and Live Writer for its focused design. I suspect Writer will remain the tool I actually use.

 

blogging, software, web authoring

Offline blog authoring with Adobe Contribute

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I generally use Microsoft’s Windows Live Writer to write my blog entries. It has a few annoyances, but I like it better than trying to type directly into WordPress. After installing Adobe’s Creative Suite 3 I noticed a new Contribute toolbar appearing in my web browser, including a Post to Blog button, reminding me that blog authoring is a feature of the new suite and that I ought to try it out. I opened Contribute and set up a connection to this blog; in fact, I’m writing this post in Contribute now.

As you would expect, Adobe has provided a sophisticated tool. Contribute sets up a template that lets you edit a blog entry within an editable area on a page that replicates the blog itself. It is more WYSIWYG than Live Writer. The editing tools are impressive too: along with basic HTML formatting, there is an Insert menu offering Flash, Video and PDF, a spell checker, a table editor, and an image editor with options to rotate, crop, sharpen, set brightness and adjust contrast. Inserting Technorati tags is easy, as is selecting categories from those I’ve defined.

Any complaints? Well, I miss the clean, uncluttered appearance of Live Writer. It feels a touch over-engineered. And if you want to inspect or edit the HTML code, you have to open the blog entry in Dreamweaver, which isn’t a great experience because you get the template as well as the blog entry.

It may sound strange, but Contribute does more than I need. I might use it for authoring WordPress pages, as opposed to blog entries, but otherwise I’m likely to stick with Live Writer. Unless Word 2007 can tempt me away; mini-review coming shortly.

,,,,,

internet, software development, web authoring

Visual Programming is back: PopFly, Pipes, Scratch

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The first true visual programming environment I used was IBM’s VisualAge Smalltalk. I liked it and thought it was a shame when IBM reverted to pure code-based development with Eclipse. Admittedly, complex applications got fairly confusing, with lines everywhere.

Now it seems visual programming is back. The other day Scratch hit the news, a cool visual programming environment for kids. I like the way that jigsaw-like shapes are used to indicate whether or not two blocks can be fitted together.

Yahoo has Pipes, drag-and-drop RSS feed combination and transformation.

Now here comes Microsoft PopFly, online visual programming for Silverlight. Is it programming? I think so:

Underneath the covers, blocks are just chunks of code that wrap complex operations, like retrieving data from a Web site or displaying an animated slideshow so that others can easily reuse that block.

PopFly looks interesting, easy to use and visually appealing, though I’ve not got an account yet. I’ve only watched the demo video.

Of course the visual bit only takes you so far. If you want to create your own blocks, or customize them, you have to write your own Javascript. I guess that will always be the case. It’s still good to see development being made more accessible for non-technical users.