[Tfug] Browser based UI's

[Bexley Hall]

> > [i.e., imagine rewriting KDE so you opened a giant
> browser
> > window in your startup script that was pointed at http://localhost/kde
> > to provide that "environment".  Some of it would
> work "OK".
> > Some parts would be "passable, but not ideal". 
> And other
> > things would just suck horribly!]
> 
> Can you elaborate on the not ideal and sucky examples?  Looking at what
> I have open in OSX, that's not a web browser right now, twitter client
> (which could be a browser app but instead it's adobe AIR, which is
> rumored to be in ChromeOS), Mail.app (lazy and check some infrequently
> used accounts that I just need a reason to have get pulled into gmail)
> and iTunes.
> 
> Oh, and X11, but your browser-based UI isn't focused at
> developers using to develop on and for.

I've been spending a lot of time playing with "consumer" interfaces
(web).  On-line banking, web mail, etc.  All are examples of
reasonably trivial applications that *should* be able to be
deployed in a way that makes them at least as easy to use as
a "native" application would be.  Yet, all seem terribly crippled.
(unless you move the application into the browser...).

Granted, things like web mail are often encumbered with a bunch
of cruft to support advertising (and you can be SURE any web
applications that we see in the future will NOT be so encumbered!)
but that still doesn't account for how clunky they are.

It seems like web interfaces are best if you can just put a
bunch of semi-static controls on a page and use them to
control the application without a lot of interaction.  E.g.,
"play song", "pause song", etc.  I sure wouldn't want to
be editing waveforms or anything remotely "real-time" using
such an interface.

But, I haven't been able to figure out what the "it" is that
differentiates the sorts of interfaces that could conceivably
be "abstracted" to a web-based implementation seemlessly.
I.e., imagine something like the turing test for such an
interface:  if you can use it and NOT know that it is web
based, then it would "pass" as "native".