Do you agree that DHTML developers often rewrite the same old code for every project? Do you see how this framework can help? In general, do you think frameworks like this are a good idea, or do you think that DHTML will give way to other development environments, such as Flash Java applets, and the .NET framework? Let us know in the web.dhtml.scripting discussion group.
A new kind of DHTML toolkit can provide developers with a better approach to code and widget reuse.
by Alex Russell
October 21, 2002
any DHTML developers are tired of building complex interfaces around poorly implemented browsers only to have to reinvent the wheel on the next project. Many more are beginning to understand that maintaining interface state on the server is a very bad option from a usability standpoint. This article should impart some hope to the DHTML development community that we need not abandon DHTML to build robust, usable, and compelling interfaces.
That said, DHTML developers must develop a better toolset if they are to build dynamic Web-application interfaces that don't require hundreds (or thousands) of man-hours of custom coding. In this article, I propose a basic starting point for defining a framework that allows better code reuse across projects and application interfaces. This framework will provide basic component lookup and creation services, and will allow developers to create components and widgets that are truly generic. In other words, the components generated by this framework are not tied to any specific environment or data set; they can be dropped in anywhere you need a widget of a given type. You can then simply tie them to the calculations or processes that they must support without the need to worry about how the components are constructed. In effect, this framework provides DHTML developers with a separation between data and presentation logic similar to that available to "regular" HTML developers via CSS and XHTML.
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any DHTML developers are tired of building complex interfaces around poorly implemented browsers only to have to reinvent the wheel on the next project. Many more are beginning to understand that maintaining interface state on the server is a very bad option from a usability standpoint. This article should impart some hope to the DHTML development community that we need not abandon DHTML to build robust, usable, and compelling interfaces.
