what Yahoo calls a "chromeless" browser
HansBKK
"These tools aim to provide a "write once, run everywhere" capability for developers of apps for the Web. Content is developed once in Javascript and HTML5. It can run in a browser, but also as an app in environments such as iOS and Android, . . .
"an app that is generic in the way a browser is, in that it is the same irrespective of the content. Unlike a browser, the chromeless browser provides no user interface, just a Javascript VM and a rendering engine. This downloads and runs the content, just as a browser would, but allows the content developer total control over the user experience."
http://blog.dshr.org/2012/01/yahoos-html5-tools.html
http://www.xconomy.com/san-francisco/2012/01/26/yahoo-challenges-apple-with-a-cocktail-of-mobile-publishing-tools/?single_page=true
http://developers.slashdot.org/story/12/01/26/1937214/yahoos-project-to-disrupt-mobile-publishing
HansWobbe
So far this year, I've had to allocate the majority of my time to learning about APPs and I've been a bit peeved that this activity has displaced several other interests that I was hoping to enjoy working on (such as TiddlySpace & TiddlyWiki refinements). What I've learned, however, is that developments like this, that put a User's (Micro)Content back within the control of its creator, are much more likely to be viable in the long-term, than the aggregation of user content by "intermediaries" who (like Facebook) are of the opinion that the content you create belongs to them.
It will be interesting to see just how quickly things change, now that developers are starting to build the needed tools. I even suspect that there will be reinforcing trends from the increased emphasis on peer-to-peer communications technologies.
In the mean time, all of the SOPA and IP debates that are focused on a centralized "site" model, seem to me to be quite irrelevant when all I have to do is attach a TW file to an email, or "cook" as TS based solution. Better yet, these solutions can even be designed to work together with a "period" DVD shipment of MicroContent that could be used as a TransClusion into a structured wrapper.
It seems "May you live in interesting times" turns out to be both a curse and a blessing, depending on your "vested interests".
perlguy
On Feb 5, 8:29 am, HansWobbe <hwo...@datafix.com> wrote:
> Thanks for posting this!
>
...
> and a blessing, depending on your "vested interests".
browser" were dashed when I got to the part where they say it's not
been open sourced yet... and on further reflection, it probably
wouldn't work as replacement for prism/webrunner anyway, being tied to
YUI, etc.
Does anyone know of a tiddlywiki friendly replacement for prism by
chance? One that stays current with the underlying rendering and
javascript engines? (I still use standalone prism for my TWs on XP...
sadly, it no longer works under linux - some library dependency broke
in F15 or F16).
--Jim
HansBKK
Agreed... my initial excitement over seeing the words "chromeless web
browser" were dashed when I got to the part where they say it's not
been open sourced yet... and on further reflection, it probably
wouldn't work as replacement for prism/webrunner anyway, being tied to
YUI, etc.
Does anyone know of a tiddlywiki friendly replacement for prism by
chance? One that stays current with the underlying rendering and
javascript engines? (I still use standalone prism for my TWs on XP...
sadly, it no longer works under linux - some library dependency broke in F15 or F16
perlguy
> Inherent contradiction there. TW's current (soon to be called "legacy" I
> guess) implementation's storage model doesn't fit with modern browsers'
> tighter security.
independent desktop web-app engine... which I hope is firefox or
chrome based, given their ubiquity.
> The FOSS project upstream of Chrome has a Prism analog in the works, but I
> imagine it will only work well with the future TW "NG".
included "first_browser" sample, and running the current release of
TW, even saving without requiring the java applet. If I can just
manage to tweak it so that links launch using the default browser,
instead of internally, I'll be happy with it... and will gladly put it
on github or the like.
> I have some legacy apps with very important data I haven't got around to
> converting that I run in a VM when needed - a pain to get set up, but now
> it's just like launching "just another app" - not much bigger or slower
> than launching something like Photoshop (or a fully loaded FF 8-) either.
I just use the latest firefox... not my personal ideal, but perfectly
usable. I hope I don't ever run into anything for personal use that
requires me to run a Linux VM, for those reasons at least. I already
run one for XP, for those times when it's impossible to do something
in FF/Chrome under Linux. I manage systems for a living, which I
really enjoy... but I'd rather not spend any more time off-hours than
I have to, maintaining yet another.
Jeremy Ruston
application that (a) embeds node.js to run the web server version of
TW and (b) embeds WebKit to handle display (c) talks to special
browser extensions for Chrome/Firefox/Safari that let you snip content
into your TiddlyWiki. Such a thing would approach the ease of use of
conventional apps, and escape the limitations of our browser hacks for
local file saving.
I have seen a few interesting experiments in this area:
https://github.com/maccman/macgap
Best wishes
Jeremy
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HansBKK
Ideally, such an app would be created as "portable" from the get-go, in both senses:
- multi-platform, supporting at least mswin, linux and osx
- on windows, being able to run from an arbitrary path without needing admin rights, changing the global environment or writing to the registry
Jeremy Ruston
> single-HTML-open-in-your-browser model?
Yes. In the new world of TW5, the SHTMLOIYB model is just one of the
formats that you can use to output your content. So, in the
background, the node.js app could be publishing a static SHTMLOIYB
file of your public content to the web.
> Ideally, such an app would be created as "portable" from the get-go, in both
> senses:
> - multi-platform, supporting at least mswin, linux and osx
> - on windows, being able to run from an arbitrary path without needing
> admin rights, changing the global environment or writing to the registry
Yes, node.js works happily like that, I believe.
Best wishes
Jeremy
Eric Weir
On Feb 8, 2012, at 10:53 AM, Jeremy Ruston wrote:
> I'm very interested in being able to package TW5 up as a Mac/Windows
> application that (a) embeds node.js to run the web server version of
> TW and (b) embeds WebKit to handle display (c) talks to special
> browser extensions for Chrome/Firefox/Safari that let you snip content
> into your TiddlyWiki. Such a thing would approach the ease of use of
> conventional apps, and escape the limitations of our browser hacks for
> local file saving.
Not as up-to-date on developments here as in the past, so may be completely off-base, but are you talking about a TW-specific browser? Something that has the advantages of a single-file browser-based wiki without all the compatibility issues with the continually evolving generic browsers?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Eric Weir
eew...@bellsouth.net
"Every moment is unique and discrete."
Eknath Eswaran
HansBKK
Jeremy Ruston
Almost.
The situation is that all browsers are actually split into two parts a
"rendering engine" and the "chrome" around the edge of it (ie, the
user interface). So, Google Chrome and Apple Safari both use the same
WebKit rendering engine, with their own UI chrome around it. Firefox
is based on a rendering engine called Gecko.
So, the idea is to take the raw rendering engine and wrap it up with a
custom user interface that serves the purposes of TiddlyWiki, without
being burdened by browser-specifics that aren't relevant (eg bookmark
sync).
The second thing you mentioned, working around the compatibility
issues of browsers, is actually accomplished by using node.js to run
the TiddlyWiki core as a little mini webserver. The node.js app is
allowed to save things to the file system, and so the browser gets the
same ability by talking to it over HTTP.
As a workaround it's pretty good, because there is no hackery
involved, it's an entirely conventional way to build applications. So
it gives us a solid fallback, of a useful and powerful configuration
that is independent of browser quirks.
It doesn't mean the end of the line for the single file configuration
of TiddlyWiki. It will always work well as a read-only distribution
format, and recent experiments suggest that there is a lot of life in
the various hacks to maintain the ability to save locally.
I'll try to draw some pictures of these configurations, I realise that
it's all a bit confusing,
Best wishes
Jeremy
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Eric Weir
> eew...@bellsouth.net
>
> "Every moment is unique and discrete."
>
> Eknath Eswaran
>
HansBKK
The second thing you mentioned, working around the compatibility issues of browsers, is actually accomplished by using node.js to run the TiddlyWiki core as a little mini webserver.
Eric Weir
On Feb 9, 2012, at 4:48 AM, Jeremy Ruston wrote:
> I'll try to draw some pictures of these configurations, I realise that
> it's all a bit confusing,
At first I was going to say, "No, I don't, and probably never will, understand the actual technology, but I get the general picture." But your comment that "it doesn't mean the end of the line for the single file configuration of TiddlyWiki" brought me up a little short.
I've wondered for long time, and have done so here more than once, whether a TW-specific browser would solve the browser compatibility issues that been with us for a long time, and whether such a thing could even be constructed. From your response I gather that that's not exactly what you're working on, but to the degree that I understand it it's appealing.
The comment that brought me up short leads me to think, however, that I might not be able to simply port my tiddlers and plugins over to the new app and go merrily on as I have with the exception of a few things I've had to just live with.
The latter, as best I can recall, have had to do in part with incompatibilities between a a favorite plugin or two and OSX. Since I'm not able to identify the problems at this point you may not be able to answer, but is it possible that the new app will avoid incompatibilities with OSX?
Anyway, it sounds very interesting. Glad you're back at work on TW.
Sincerely,
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Eric Weir
Decatur, GA
eew...@bellsouth.net
"What does it mean...that the world is so beautiful?"
- Mary Oliver
Jeremy Ruston
Yes, that is correct. TiddlyWiki5 will run in the browser (meaning
desktop and mobile) and under node.js (which either means running
locally on your machine, or running on a server somewhere).
> For anyone of course, not just Jeremy: Is the "experimenting" with the
> current TW solid/easy enough for a non-programming-but-geeky user to start
> to play around with?
Yes, I think it is in a reasonable state for a little experimentation.
You might find the command line abilities to extract tiddlers from
TiddlyWiki files useful. But the intention is that end users of
TiddlyWiki can see everything that might interest them at
http://tiddlywiki.com/tiddlywiki5
> Could it be packaged with the file to be run from the
> same folder (as localhost) when read/write is required?
Are you asking whether it will be possible to use TiddlyWiki5 as a
webserver that stores it's data in an ordinary TiddlyWiki file? It
would be possible to do that, but it might not be very efficient to be
writing out the entire TiddlyWiki file every time a tiddler changes.
Best wishes
Jeremy
Jeremy Ruston
>
> I've wondered for long time, and have done so here more than once, whether a TW-specific browser would solve the browser compatibility issues that been with us for a long time, and whether such a thing could even be constructed. From your response I gather that that's not exactly what you're working on, but to the degree that I understand it it's appealing.
I wouldn't really think of it as a special TW browser; it's more of a
case of wrapping TiddlyWiki up into a custom application for each
platform. Anyhow, it can definitely be done - TWEdit and TWMobile on
the iPad/iPhone are an excellent example of such a thing.
> The comment that brought me up short leads me to think, however, that I might not be able to simply port my tiddlers and plugins over to the new app and go merrily on as I have with the exception of a few things I've had to just live with.
Are you referring to backwards compatibility concerns with older
versions of TiddlyWiki? I'm certainly making backwards compatibility
an important criterion for the design as it emerges. But there are
areas where I do intend to break it, notably, I plan to change the
wikifier so that it generates the expected <P> tags instead of endless
<BR>s. And there will be no support for running macros written for
classic TiddlyWiki; they will need to be rewritten for TW5 (you'll
readily understand that the alternative would have required retaining
too many of TiddlyWiki's original quirks and misdesigns).
So, I think it will be one of those situations where 98% of content
will transfer across quite happily.
> The latter, as best I can recall, have had to do in part with incompatibilities between a a favorite plugin or two and OSX. Since I'm not able to identify the problems at this point you may not be able to answer, but is it possible that the new app will avoid incompatibilities with OSX?
I think I'd need to understand more about the original problem. As I
said, those plugins will not work in TW5, and so the question might be
hypothetical.
> Anyway, it sounds very interesting. Glad you're back at work on TW.
Thanks for the kind words,
Best wishes
Jeremy
> Sincerely,
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Eric Weir
> Decatur, GA
> eew...@bellsouth.net
>
> "What does it mean...that the world is so beautiful?"
>
> - Mary Oliver
>
>
>
>
>
>