Thread: Desktop-like Functionality in Browser-based Applications

Users' expectations on the Web are changing. No longer content to
fill in forms and wait for pages to refresh, modern Web users want to interact with the browser in the same way they do with any other desktop application-that is, interactively and instantly. Recently, this has been made easier by the emergence of AJAX and its JavaScript-centred programming paradigm. But, AJAX is not the only technology that can help here. There is, of course, the ubiquitous Flash technology, but its closed-source heritage puts off the community. And, then there's OpenLaszlo.

Originally a Flash-centric technology, OpenLaszlo Release 4 (hereafter referred
to as OpenLaszlo) breaks free from its Flash heritage and supports DHTML as an additional deployment platform. This means that applications written in OpenLaszlo can execute in any browser that supports DHTML or Flash's SWF, which practically covers every major browser on every operating system.



As the name suggests, OpenLaszlo is an open source product, released under the Common Public License, and OpenLaszlo's creators, Laszlo Systems, are keen to see a strong open source developer community form around this main product offering.

OpenLaszlo is billed as a Rich Internet Application (RIA) development platform. Its goal in life is to add desktop-like functionality to browser-based applications, and it accomplishes this in a non-conventional, yet highly-productive way. In this .article, I explain how to install and configure OpenLaszlo, and then present a few small example applications showcasing some of what OpenLaszlo has to offer.