Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
enhanced object communication that allowed slightly more advanced forms of object
manipulations between objects, full web integration to run the Webble framework in
any browser, free online, easy access to achieve an expansion of the community of
object developers and users, open source support in order to work along other open
source solutions within the EU project, full compatibility with the existing web in
order to be able to communicate with any other Web technology, no limitations in
appearances and graphics so that complex visual objects could be designed and used,
re-usability of other web resources so that Webble development may benefit from
work already done in order to save time and money, and finally large scale indepen-
dence from domain and content source restrictions so that Webbles and its content can
be found and combined from any available online server. We jumped on the task to
achieve that.
2
History of Webble World
Before we get to the mission at hand to explain how to use and take part in the current
version of Webble World we feel it is beneficial to first let you in on how we got to
this point and what problems we had to deal with.
2.1
The Way to Get There
It was not obvious to start with in what direction this development should go. Many
technologies available out there contained promising issues that would make it possi-
ble for us to implement the platform we were imagine. But did any of them contain all
of them? Back then, Flash was still a pretty strong contestant for creating rich web
based systems. While HTML and JavaScript was, as always, the master of web ap-
proaches, their gigantic problems of browser implementation support made it fairly
easy to see that using that approach while implementing Webble World, which at that
moment of time went by another work name, would be an head ache too hard to bear.
Also we had to consider the need for stronger powers and freedom regarding graphics
in this new version. Vector graphic seemed like a good idea, but the support for SVG
and similar was weak at best and definitely not the same between browsers and it also
often required plug-ins, so if we needed plug-ins anyway maybe Flash was a better
option. Java and applet concepts was considered but that never left the brainstorming
meeting for various reasons, one being as simple as the fact that Java as a program-
ming language was not well looked upon by the team, nor its tools and its way of
inserting itself by brute force into a website (partly due to the way HTML 4 dealt with
plug-in objects). Many APIs by both Google, Yahoo and other player's was consi-
dered and even mockup tested to see whether they could bring what we were looking
for and let us avoid Flash. So why was Flash not the obvious choice? Simply because
it was not a programming tool, it was a design tool for web designers with the light
support of simple scripting. It was used for simple interactions, in simple relational
situations in order to enhance the graphical appearance and user experience. It was
not a tool any 'real' programmer would like to implement a platform of above
