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Gary Edwards

XML Production Workflows? Start with the Web and XHTML - 0 views

quod.lib.umich.edu/...n-workflows-start-with-the-web

OpenWeb XML XHTML-CSS HTML5-CSS3-JavaScript IDML

shared by Gary Edwards on 07 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • Challenges: Some Ugly Truths The challenges of building—and living with—an XML workflow are clear enough. The return on investment is a long-term proposition. Regardless of the benefits XML may provide, the starting reality is that it represents a very different way of doing things than the one we are familiar with. The Word Processing and Desktop Publishing paradigm, based on the promise of onscreen, WYSIWYG layout, is so dominant as to be practically inescapable. It has proven really hard to get from here to there, no matter how attractive XML might be on paper. A considerable amount of organizational effort and labour must be expended up front in order to realize the benefits. This is why XML is often referred to as an “investment”: you sink a bunch of time and money up front, and realize the benefits—greater flexibility, multiple output options, searching and indexing, and general futureproofing—later, over the long haul. It is not a short-term return proposition. And, of course, the returns you are able to realize from your XML investment are commensurate with what you put in up front: fine-grained, semantically rich tagging is going to give you more potential for searchability and recombination than a looser, more general-purpose approach, but it sure costs more. For instance, the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) is the grand example of pouring enormous amounts of energy into the up-front tagging, with a very open-ended set of possibilities down the line. TEI helpfully defines a level to which most of us do not have to aspire.[5] But understanding this on a theoretical level is only part of the challenge. There are many practical issues that must be addressed. Software and labour are two of the most critical. How do you get the content into XML in the first place? Unfortunately, despite two decades of people doing SGML and XML, this remains an ugly question.
  • Practical Challenges In 2009, there is still no truly likeable—let alone standard—editing and authoring software for XML. For many (myself included), the high-water mark here was Adobe’s FrameMaker, substantially developed by the late 1990s. With no substantial market for it, it is relegated today mostly to the tech writing industry, unavailable for the Mac, and just far enough afield from the kinds of tools we use today that its adoption represents a significant hurdle. And FrameMaker was the best of the breed; most of the other software in decent circulation are programmers’ tools—the sort of things that, as Michael Tamblyn pointed out, encourage editors to drink at their desks. The labour question represents a stumbling block as well. The skill-sets and mind-sets that effective XML editors need have limited overlap with those needed by literary and more traditional production editors. The need to think of documents as machine-readable databases is not something that comes naturally to folks steeped in literary culture. In combination with the sheer time and effort that rich tagging requires, many publishers simply outsource the tagging to India, drawing a division of labour that spans oceans, to put it mildly. Once you have XML content, then what do you do with it? How do you produce books from it? Presumably, you need to be able to produce print output as well as digital formats. But while the latter are new enough to be generally XML-friendly (e-book formats being largely XML based, for instance), there aren’t any straightforward, standard ways of moving XML content into the kind of print production environments we are used to seeing. This isn’t to say that there aren’t ways of getting print—even very high-quality print—output from XML, just that most of them involve replacing your prepress staff with Java programmers.
  • Why does this have to be so hard? It’s not that XML is new, or immature, or untested. Remember that the basics have been around, and in production, since the early 1980s at least. But we have to take account of a substantial and long-running cultural disconnect between traditional editorial and production processes (the ones most of us know intimately) and the ways computing people have approached things. Interestingly, this cultural divide looked rather different in the 1970s, when publishers were looking at how to move to digital typesetting. Back then, printers and software developers could speak the same language. But that was before the ascendancy of the Desktop Publishing paradigm, which computerized the publishing industry while at the same time isolating it culturally. Those of us who learned how to do things the Quark way or the Adobe way had little in common with people who programmed databases or document-management systems. Desktop publishing technology isolated us in a smooth, self-contained universe of toolbars, grid lines, and laser proofs. So, now that the reasons to get with this program, XML, loom large, how can we bridge this long-standing divide?
  • ...44 more annotations...
  • Using the Web as a Production Platform The answer, I think, is right in front of you. The bridge is the Web, a technology and platform that is fundamentally based on XML, and which many publishers are by now comfortably familiar with. Perhaps not entirely comfortably, but at least most publishers are already working with the Web; they already either know or have on staff people who understand it and can work with it. The foundation of our argument is this: rather than looking at jumping to XML in its full, industrial complexity, which seems to be what the O'Reilly-backed StartWithXML initiative[6] is suggesting, publishers instead leverage existing tools and technologies—starting with the Web—as a means of getting XML workflows in place. This means making small investments and working with known tools rather than spending tens of thousands of dollars on XML software and rarefied consultants. It means re-thinking how the existing pieces of the production toolchain fit together; re-thinking the existing roles of software components already in use. It means, fundamentally, taking the Web seriously as a content platform, rather than thinking of it as something you need to get content out to, somehow. If nothing else, the Web represents an opportunity to think about editorial and production from outside the shrink-wrapped Desktop Publishing paradigm.
  • Is the Web made of Real XML? At this point some predictable objections can be heard: wait a moment, the Web isn’t really made out of XML; the HTML that makes up most of the Web is at best the bastard child of SGML, and it is far too flaky/unstructured/underpowered to be taken seriously. We counter by arguing that although HTML on the Web exists in a staggering array of different incarnations, and that the majority of it is indeed an unstructured mess, this does not undermine the general principle that basic, ubiquitous Web technologies can make a solid platform for content management, editorial process, and production workflow.
  • With the advent of a published XML standard in the late 1990s came the W3C’s adoption of XHTML: the realization of the Web’s native content markup as a proper XML document type. Today, its acceptance is almost ubiquitous, even while the majority of actual content out there may not be strictly conforming. The more important point is that most contemporary Web software, from browsers to authoring tools to content management systems (from blogs to enterprise systems), are capable of working with clean, valid XHTML. Or, to put the argument the other way around, clean, valid XHTML content plays absolutely seamlessly with everything else on the Web.[7]
  • The objection which follows, then, will be that even if we grant that XHTML is a real XML document type, that it is underpowered for “serious” content because it is almost entirely presentation (formatting) oriented; it lacks any semantic depth. In XHTML, a paragraph is a paragraph is a paragraph, as opposed to a section or an epigraph or a summary.
  • n contrast, more “serious” XML document types like DocBook[8] or DITA-derived schemas[9] are capable of making semantic distinctions about content chunks at a fine level of granularity and with a high degree of specificity.
  • So there is an argument for recalling the 80:20 rule here. If XHTML can provide 80% of the value with just 20% of the investment, then what exactly is the business case for spending the other 80% to achieve that last 20% of value? We suspect the ratio is actually quite a bit steeper than 80:20 for most publishers.
  • Furthermore, just to get technical for a moment, XHTML is extensible in a fairly straightforward way, through the common “class” attribute on each element. Web developers have long leveraged this kind of extensibility in the elaboration of “microformats” for semantic-web applications.[10] There is no reason why publishers shouldn’t think to use XHTML’s simple extensibility in a similar way for their own ends.
  • XHTML, on the other hand, is supported by a vast array of quotidian software, starting with the ubiquitous Web browser. For this very reason, XHTML is in fact employed as a component part of several more specialized document types (ONIX and ePub among them).
  • Why re-invent a general-purpose prose representation when XHTML already does the job?
  • It is worth pausing for a moment to consider the role of XHTML in the ePub standard for ebook content. An ePub file is, anatomically, a simply disguised zip archive. Inside the zip archive are a few standard component parts: there are specialized files that declare metadata about the book, and about the format of the book. And then there is the book’s content, represented in XHTML. An ePub book is a Web page in a wrapper.
  • To sum up the general argument: the Web as it already exists presents incredible value to publishers, as a platform for doing XML content management with existing (and often free) tools, and without having to go blindly into the unknown. At this point, we can offer a few design guidelines: prefer existing and/or ubiquitous tools over specialized ones wherever possible; prefer free software over proprietary systems where possible; prefer simple tools controlled and coordinated by human beings over fully automated (and therefore complex) systems; play to our strengths: use Web software for storing and managing content, use layout software for layout, and keep editors and production people in charge of their own domains.
  • Putting the Pieces Together: A Prototype
  • At the SFU Master of Publishing Program, we have been chipping away at this general line of thinking for a few years. Over that time, Web content management systems have been getting more and more sophisticated, all the while getting more streamlined and easier to use. (NB: if you have a blog, you have a Web content management system.) The Web is beginning to be recognized as a writing and editing environment used by millions of people. And the ways in which content is represented, stored, and exchanged online have become increasingly robust and standardized.
  • The missing piece of the puzzle has been print production: how can we move content from its malleable, fluid form on line into the kind of high-quality print production environments we’ve come to expect after two decades of Desktop Publishing?
  • Anyone who has tried to print Web content knows that the existing methods leave much to be desired (hyphenation and justification, for starters). In the absence of decent tools for this, most publishers quite naturally think of producing the print content first, and then think about how to get material onto the Web for various purposes. So we tend to export from Word, or from Adobe, as something of an afterthought.
  • While this sort of works, it isn’t elegant, and it completely ignores the considerable advantages of Web-based content management.
  • Content managed online is stored in one central location, accessible simultaneously to everyone in your firm, available anywhere you have an Internet connection, and usually exists in a much more fluid format than Word files. If only we could manage the editorial flow online, and then go to print formats at the end, instead of the other way around. At SFU, we made several attempts to make this work by way of the supposed “XML import” capabilities of various Desktop Publishing tools, without much success.[12]
  • In the winter of 2009, Adobe solved this part of the problem for us with the introduction of its Creative Suite 4. What CS4 offers is the option of a complete XML representation of an InDesign document: what Adobe calls IDML (InDesign Markup Language).
  • The IDML file format is—like ePub—a simply disguised zip archive that, when unpacked, reveals a cluster of XML files that represent all the different facets of an InDesign document: layout spreads, master pages, defined styles, colours, and of course, the content.
  • IDML is a well thought-out XML standard that achieves two very different goals simultaneously: it preserves all of the information that InDesign needs to do what it does; and it is broken up in a way that makes it possible for mere mortals (or at least our Master of Publishing students) to work with it.
  • What this represented to us in concrete terms was the ability to take Web-based content and move it into InDesign in a straightforward way, thus bridging Web and print production environments using existing tools and skillsets, with a little added help from free software.
  • We would take clean XHTML content, transform it to IDML-marked content, and merge that with nicely designed templates in InDesign.
  • The result is an almost push-button publication workflow, which results in a nice, familiar InDesign document that fits straight into the way publishers actually do production.
  • Tracing the steps To begin with, we worked backwards, moving the book content back to clean XHTML.
  • The simplest method for this conversion—and if you want to create Web content, this is an excellent route—was to use Adobe’s “Export to Digital Editions” option, which creates an ePub file.
  • Recall that ePub is just XHTML in a wrapper, so within the ePub file was a relatively clean XHTML document. It was somewhat cleaner (that is, the XHTML tagging was simpler and less cluttered) than InDesign’s other Web-oriented exports, possibly because Digital Editions is a well understood target, compared with somebody’s website.
  • In order to achieve our target of clean XHTML, we needed to do some editing; the XHTML produced by InDesign’s “Digital Editions” export was presentation-oriented. For instance, bulleted list items were tagged as paragraphs, with a class attribute identifying them as list items. Using the search-and-replace function, we converted such structures to proper XHTML list and list-item elements. Our guiding principle was to make the XHTML as straightforward as possible, not dependent on any particular software to interpret it.
  • We broke the book’s content into individual chapter files; each chapter could then carry its own basic metadata, and the pages conveniently fit our Web content management system (which is actually just a wiki). We assembled a dynamically generated table of contents for the 12 chapters, and created a cover page. Essentially, the book was entirely Web-based at this point.
  • When the book chapters are viewed online, they are formatted via a CSS2 stylesheet that defines a main column for content as well as dedicating screen real estate for navigational elements. We then created a second template to render the content for exporting; this was essentially a bare-bones version of the book with no navigation and minimal styling. Pages (or even the entire book) can be exported (via the “Save As...” function in a Web browser) for use in either print production or ebook conversion. At this point, we required no skills beyond those of any decent Web designer.
  • Integrating with CS4 for Print Adobe’s IDML language defines elements specific to InDesign; there is nothing in the language that looks remotely like XHTML. So a mechanical transformation step is needed to convert the XHTML content into something InDesign can use. This is not as hard as it might seem.
  • Both XHTML and IDML are composed of straightforward, well-documented structures, and so transformation from one to the other is, as they say, “trivial.” We chose to use XSLT (Extensible Stylesheet Language Transforms) to do the work. XSLT is part of the overall XML specification, and thus is very well supported in a wide variety of tools. Our prototype used a scripting engine called xsltproc, a nearly ubiquitous piece of software that we found already installed as part of Mac OS X (contemporary Linux distributions also have this as a standard tool), though any XSLT processor would work.
  • In other words, we don’t need to buy InCopy, because we just replaced it with the Web. Our wiki is now plugged directly into our InDesign layout. It even automatically updates the InDesign document when the content changes. Credit is due at this point to Adobe: this integration is possible because of the open file format in the Creative Suite 4.
  • We wrote an XSLT transformation script[18] that converted the XHTML content from the Web into an InCopy ICML file. The script itself is less than 500 lines long, and was written and debugged over a period of about a week by amateurs (again, the people named at the start of this article). The script runs in a couple of seconds, and the resulting .icml file can then be “placed” directly into an InDesign template. The ICML file references an InDesign stylesheet, so the template file can be set up with a house-styled layout, master pages, and stylesheet definitions for paragraphs and character ranges.
  • The result is very simple and easy to use. Our demonstration requires that a production editor run the XSLT transformation script manually, but there is no reason why this couldn’t be built directly into the Web content management system so that exporting the content to print ran the transformation automatically. The resulting file would then be “placed” in InDesign and proofed.
  • It should be noted that the Book Publishing 1 proof-of-concept was artificially complex; we began with a book laid out in InDesign and ended up with a look-alike book laid out in InDesign. But next time—for instance, when we publish Book Publishing 2—we can begin the process with the content on the Web, and keep it there throughout the editorial process. The book’s content could potentially be written and edited entirely online, as Web content, and then automatically poured into an InDesign template at proof time. “Just in time,” as they say. This represents an entirely new way of thinking of book production. With a Web-first orientation, it makes little sense to think of the book as “in print” or “out of print”—the book is simply available, in the first place online; in the second place in derivative digital formats; and third, but really not much more difficult, in print-ready format, via the usual InDesign CS print production system publishers are already familiar with.
  • Creating Ebook Files Creating electronic versions from XHTML source is vastly simpler than trying to generate these out of the existing print process. The ePub version is extremely easy to generate; so is online marketing copy or excerpts for the Web, since the content begins life Web-native.
  • Since an ePub file is essentially XHTML content in a special wrapper, all that is required is that we properly “wrap” our XHTML content. Ideally, the content in an ePub file is broken into chapters (as ours was) and a table of contents file is generated in order to allow easy navigation within an ebook reader. We used Julian Smart’s free tool eCub[19] to simply and automatically generate the ePub wrapper and the table of contents. The only custom development we did was to create a CSS stylesheet for the ebook so that headings and paragraph indents looked the way we wanted. Starting with XHTML content, creating ePub is almost too easy.
  • Such a workflow—beginning with the Web and exporting to print—is surely more in line with the way we will do business in the 21st century, where the Web is the default platform for reaching audiences, developing content, and putting the pieces together. It is time, we suggest, for publishers to re-orient their operations and start with the Web.
  • Our project demonstrates that Web technologies are indeed good enough to use in an XML-oriented workflow; more specialized and expensive options are not necessarily required. For massive-scale enterprise publishing, this approach may not offer enough flexibility, and the challenge of adding and extracting extra semantic richness may prove more trouble than it's worth.
  • But for smaller firms who are looking at the straightforward benefits of XML-based processes—single source publishing, online content and workflow management, open and accessible archive formats, greater online discoverability—here is a way forward.
  • Rather than a public-facing website, our system relies on the Web as a content management platform—of course a public face could easily be added.
  • The final piece of our puzzle, the ability to integrate print production, was made possible by Adobe's release of InDesign with an open XML file format. Since the Web's XHTML is also XML, is can be easily and confidently transformed to the InDesign format.
  • today, we are able to put the process together using nothing but standard, relatively ubiquitous Web tools: the Web itself as an editing and content management environment, standard Web scripting tools for the conversion process, and the well-documented IDML file format to integrate the layout tool.
  • Using the Web as a Production Platform
  • Gary Edwards on 07 Nov 13
     
    I was looking for an answer to a problem Marbux had presented, and found this interesting article.  The issue was that of the upcoming conversion of the Note Case Pro (NCP) layout engine to the WebKit layout engine, and what to do about the NCP document format. My initial reaction was to encode the legacy NCP document format in XML, and run an XSLT to a universal pivot format like TEI-XML.  From there, the TEI-XML community would provide all the XSLT transformation routines for conversion to ODF, OOXML, XHTML, ePUB and HTML/CSS. Researching the problems one might encounter with this approach, I found this article.  Fascinating stuff. My take away is that TEI-XML would not be as effective a "universal pivot point" as XHTML.  Or perhaps, if NCP really wants to get aggressive; IDML - InDesign Markup Language. The important point though is that XHTML is a browser specific version of XML, and compatible with the Web Kit layout engine Miro wants to move NCP to. The concept of encoding an existing application-specific format in XML has been around since 1998, when XML was first introduced as a W3C standard, a "structured" subset of SGML. (HTML is also a subset of SGML). The multiplatform StarOffice productivity suite became "OpenOffice" when Sun purchased the company in 1998, and open sourced the code base. The OpenOffice developer team came out with a XML encoding of their existing document formats in 2000. The application specific encoding became an OASIS document format standard proposal in 2002 - also known as ODF. Microsoft followed OpenOffice with a XML encoding of their application-specific binary document formats, known as OOXML. Encoding the existing NCP format in XML, specifically targeting XHTML as a "universal pivot point", would put the NCP Outliner in the Web editor category, without breaking backwards compatibility. The trick is in the XSLT conversion process. But I think that is something much easier to handle then trying to
  • Gary Edwards on 07 Nov 13
     
    I was looking for an answer to a problem Marbux had presented, and found this interesting article.  The issue was that of the upcoming conversion of the Note Case Pro (NCP) layout engine to the WebKit layout engine, and what to do about the NCP document format. My initial reaction was to encode the legacy NCP document format in XML, and run an XSLT to a universal pivot format like TEI-XML.  From there, the TEI-XML community would provide all the XSLT transformation routines for conversion to ODF, OOXML, XHTML, ePUB and HTML/CSS. Researching the problems one might encounter with this approach, I found this article.  Fascinating stuff. My take away is that TEI-XML would not be as effective a "universal pivot point" as XHTML.  Or perhaps, if NCP really wants to get aggressive; IDML - InDesign Markup Language. The important point though is that XHTML is a browser specific version of XML, and compatible with the Web Kit layout engine Miro wants to move NCP to. The concept of encoding an existing application-specific format in XML has been around since 1998, when XML was first introduced as a W3C standard, a "structured" subset of SGML. (HTML is also a subset of SGML). The multiplatform StarOffice productivity suite became "OpenOffice" when Sun purchased the company in 1998, and open sourced the code base. The OpenOffice developer team came out with a XML encoding of their existing document formats in 2000. The application specific encoding became an OASIS document format standard proposal in 2002 - also known as ODF. Microsoft followed OpenOffice with a XML encoding of their application-specific binary document formats, known as OOXML. Encoding the existing NCP format in XML, specifically targeting XHTML as a "universal pivot point", would put the NCP Outliner in the Web editor category, without breaking backwards compatibility. The trick is in the XSLT conversion process. But I think that is something much easier to handle then trying to
Gary Edwards

Developer: Dump JavaScript for faster Web loading | CIO - 0 views

www.cio.com/...pt-for-faster-web-loading.html

HML6 JavaScript JSON

shared by Gary Edwards on 27 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • Accomplishing the goal of a high-speed, responsive Web experience without loading JavaScript "could probably be done by linking anchor elements to JSON/XML (or a new definition) API endpoints [and] having the browser internally load the data into a new data structure," the proposal states.
  • The browser "then replaces DOM elements with whatever data that was loaded as needed.
  • The initial data and standard error responses could be in header fixtures, which could be replaced later if so desired. "The HTML body thus becomes a templating language with all the content residing in the fixtures that can be dynamically reloaded without JavaScript."
  • Gary Edwards on 27 Mar 15
     
    "A W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) mailing list post entitled "HTML6 proposal for single-page Web apps without JavaScript" details the proposal, dated March 20. "The overall purpose [of the plan] is to reduce response times when loading Web pages," said Web developer Bobby Mozumder, editor in chief of FutureClaw magazine, in an email. "This is the difference between a 300ms page load vs 10ms. The faster you are, the better people are going to feel about using your Website." The proposal cites a standard design pattern emerging via front-end JavaScript frameworks where content is loaded dynamically via JSON APIs. "This is the single-page app Web design pattern," said Mozumder. "Everyone's into it because the responsiveness is so much better than loading a full page -- 10-50ms with a clean API load vs. 300-1500ms for a full HTML page load. Since this is so common now, can we implement this directly in the browsers via HTML so users can dynamically run single-page apps without JavaScript?" Accomplishing the goal of a high-speed, responsive Web experience without loading JavaScript "could probably be done by linking anchor elements to JSON/XML (or a new definition) API endpoints [and] having the browser internally load the data into a new data structure," the proposal states. The browser "then replaces DOM elements with whatever data that was loaded as needed." The initial data and standard error responses could be in header fixtures, which could be replaced later if so desired. "The HTML body thus becomes a templating language with all the content residing in the fixtures that can be dynamically reloaded without JavaScript." JavaScript frameworks and JavaScript are leveraged for loading now, but there are issues with these, Mozumder explained. "Should we force millions of Web developers to learn JavaScript, a framework, and an associated templating language if they want a speedy, responsive Web site out-of-the-box? This is a huge barrier for beginners, and right n
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Invisible Web: What it is, Why it exists, How to find it, and Its inherent ambiguity - 1 views

www.lib.berkeley.edu/...InvisibleWeb.html

invisibleweb deepweb Deep Web invisible deep web search resources reference

shared by Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 20 Dec 11 - Cached
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 20 Dec 11
     
    [What is the "Invisible Web", a.k.a. the "Deep Web"? The "visible web" is what you can find using general web search engines. It's also what you see in almost all subject directories. The "invisible web" is what you cannot find using these types of tools. The first version of this web page was written in 2000, when this topic was new and baffling to many web searchers. Since then, search engines' crawlers and indexing programs have overcome many of the technical barriers that made it impossible for them to find "invisible" web pages. These types of pages used to be invisible but can now be found in most search engine results: Pages in non-HTML formats (pdf, Word, Excel, PowerPoint), now converted into HTML. Script-based pages, whose URLs contain a ? or other script coding. Pages generated dynamically by other types of database software (e.g., Active Server Pages, Cold Fusion). These can be indexed if there is a stable URL somewhere that search engine crawlers can find. ]
Gary Edwards

The Open Web: Next-Generation Standards Support in WebKit/ Safari - 0 views

www.apple.com/...features.html

webkit safari acid3 open-web interoperability

shared by Gary Edwards on 19 Mar 09 - Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 19 Mar 09
     
    Apple has posted an interesting page describing Safari technologies. Innovations and support for existing standards as well as the ACID3 test are covered.

    Many people think that the Apple WebKit-Safari-iPhone innovations are pushing Open Web Standards beyond beyond the limits of "Open", and deep into the verboten realm of vendor specific extensions. Others, myself included, believe that the WebKit community has to do this if Open Web technologies are to be anyway competitive with Microsoft's RiA (XAML-Silverlight-WPF).

    Adobe RiA (AiR-Flex-Flash) is also an alternative to WebKit and Microsoft RiA; kind of half Open Web, half proprietary though. Adobe Flash is of course proprietary. While Adobe AiR implements the WebKit layout engine and visual document model. I suspect that as Adobe RiA loses ground to Microsoft Silverlight, they will open up Flash. But that's not something the Open Web can afford to wait for.

    In many ways, WebKit is at the cutting edge of Ajax Open Web technologies. The problems of Ajax not scaling well are being solved as shared JavaScript libraries continue to amaze, and the JavaScript engines roar with horsepower. Innovations in WebKit, even the vendor-device specific ones, are being picked up by the JS Libraries, Firefox, and the other Open Web browsers.

    At the end of the day though, it is the balance between the ACiD3 test on one side and the incredible market surge of WebKit smartphones, countertops, and netbook devices at the edge of the Web that seem to hold things together.

    The surge at the edge is washing back over the greater Web, as cross-browser frustrated Web designers and developers roll out the iPhone welcome. Let's hope the ACiD3 test holds. So far it's proving to be a far more important consideration for maintaining Open Web interop, without sacrificing innovation, than anything going on at the stalled W3C.

    "..... Safari continues to lead the way, implementing
Paul Merrell

Last Call Working Draft -- W3C Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG) 2.0 - 1 views

www.w3.org/ATAG20

accessibility authoring tools web standards W3C

shared by Paul Merrell on 09 Jul 10 - Cached
  • Examples of authoring tools: ATAG 2.0 applies to a wide variety of web content generating applications, including, but not limited to: web page authoring tools (e.g., WYSIWYG HTML editors) software for directly editing source code (see note below) software for converting to web content technologies (e.g., "Save as HTML" features in office suites) integrated development environments (e.g., for web application development) software that generates web content on the basis of templates, scripts, command-line input or "wizard"-type processes software for rapidly updating portions of web pages (e.g., blogging, wikis, online forums) software for generating/managing entire web sites (e.g., content management systems, courseware tools, content aggregators) email clients that send messages in web content technologies multimedia authoring tools debugging tools for web content software for creating mobile web applications
  • Web-based and non-web-based: ATAG 2.0 applies equally to authoring tools of web content that are web-based, non-web-based or a combination (e.g., a non-web-based markup editor with a web-based help system, a web-based content management system with a non-web-based file uploader client). Real-time publishing: ATAG 2.0 applies to authoring tools with workflows that involve real-time publishing of web content (e.g., some collaborative tools). For these authoring tools, conformance to Part B of ATAG 2.0 may involve some combination of real-time accessibility supports and additional accessibility supports available after the real-time authoring session (e.g., the ability to add captions for audio that was initially published in real-time). For more information, see the Implementing ATAG 2.0 - Appendix E: Real-time content production. Text Editors: ATAG 2.0 is not intended to apply to simple text editors that can be used to edit source content, but that include no support for the production of any particular web content technology. In contrast, ATAG 2.0 can apply to more sophisticated source content editors that support the production of specific web content technologies (e.g., with syntax checking, markup prediction, etc.).
  • Paul Merrell on 09 Jul 10
     
    Link is the latest version link so page should update when this specification graduates to a W3C recommendation.
Gary Edwards

With faster Chrome browser, Google offers an Android alternative - CNET - 0 views

www.cnet.com/...-offers-an-android-alternative

web-app-framework Chrome Android

shared by Gary Edwards on 27 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 27 Jun 14
     
    "On mobile devices, the Web hasn't lived up to its promise of a universal programming foundation. Google is trying to change that." Android hogged the spotlight at Google I/O, but performance improvements in Google's Chrome browser show that the company hasn't given up on trying to advance its other programming foundation -- the Web. The mobile version of Chrome has become much more responsive since 2013, said Paul Irish, a developer advocate on the Chrome team, speaking at the San Francisco conference. "We've improved the speed of animation by 75 percent and of scrolling 35 percent," Irish told developers Thursday. "We're committed to getting you 60 frames per second on the mobile Web." That performance is crucial for persuading people to use Web sites rather than native apps for things like posting on social networks, reading news, and playing games. It's also key to getting programmers to take the Web path when so many today focus on native apps written directly for Google's Android operating system and Apple's iOS competitor. The 60 frames-per-second rate refers to how fast the screen redraws when elements are in motion, either during games or when people are doing things like swiping among pages and dragging icons. The 60fps threshold is the minimum that game developers strive for, and to achieve it with no distracting stutters, a device must calculate how to update its entire screen every 16.7 milliseconds. Google, whose Android operating system initially lagged Apple's rival iOS significantly in this domain of responsiveness, has made great strides in improving its OS and its apps. But the mobile Web hasn't kept pace, and that means programmers have been more likely to aim for native apps rather than Web-based apps that can run on any device. ............................ Good review focused on the growing threat that native "paltform specific" apps are replacing Web apps as the developer's best choice. Florian thinks that native apps will win
Gary Edwards

Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: Introducing Rich Snippets - 0 views

googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/...introducing-rich-snippets.html

rdfa rich-snippets google html5 odf ooxml w3c

shared by Gary Edwards on 17 May 09 - Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 17 May 09
     
    Google "Rich Snippets" is a new presentation of HTML snippets that applies Google's algorithms to highlight structured data embedded in web pages. Rich Snippets give end-users convenient summary information about their search results at a glance. Google is currently supporting a very limited subset of data about reviews and people. When searching for a product or service, users can easily see reviews and ratings, and when searching for a person, they'll get help distinguishing between people with the same name. It's a simple change to the display of search results, yet our experiments have shown that users find the new data valuable. For this to work though, both Web-masters and Web-workers have to annotate thier pages with structured data in a standard format. Google snippets supports microformats and RDFa. Existing Web data can be wrapped with some additional tags to accomplish this. Notice that Google avoids mention of RDF and the W3C's vision of a "Semantic Web" where Web objects are fully described in machine readable semantics. Over at the WHATWG group, where work on HTML5 continues, Google's Ian Hickson has been fighting RDFa and the Semantic Web in what looks to be an effort to protect the infamous Google algorithms. RDFa provides a means for Web-workers, knowledge-workers, line-of-business managers and document generating end-users to enrich their HTML+ with machine semantics. The idea being that the document experts creating Web content can best describe to search engine and content management machines the objects-of-information used. The google algorithms provide a proprietary semantics of this same content. The best solution to the tsunami of conten the Web has wrought would be to combine end-user semantic expertise with Google algorithms. Let's hope Google stays the RDFa course and comes around to recognize the full potential of organizing the world's information with the input of content providers. One thing the world desperatel
Paul Merrell

We're Halfway to Encrypting the Entire Web | Electronic Frontier Foundation - 0 views

www.eff.org/...-halfway-encrypting-entire-web

Internet encryption https adoption

shared by Paul Merrell on 25 Feb 17 - No Cached
  • The movement to encrypt the web has reached a milestone. As of earlier this month, approximately half of Internet traffic is now protected by HTTPS. In other words, we are halfway to a web safer from the eavesdropping, content hijacking, cookie stealing, and censorship that HTTPS can protect against. Mozilla recently reported that the average volume of encrypted web traffic on Firefox now surpasses the average unencrypted volume
  • Google Chrome’s figures on HTTPS usage are consistent with that finding, showing that over 50% of of all pages loaded are protected by HTTPS across different operating systems.
  • This milestone is a combination of HTTPS implementation victories: from tech giants and large content providers, from small websites, and from users themselves.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Starting in 2010, EFF members have pushed tech companies to follow crypto best practices. We applauded when Facebook and Twitter implemented HTTPS by default, and when Wikipedia and several other popular sites later followed suit. Google has also put pressure on the tech community by using HTTPS as a signal in search ranking algorithms and, starting this year, showing security warnings in Chrome when users load HTTP sites that request passwords or credit card numbers. EFF’s Encrypt the Web Report also played a big role in tracking and encouraging specific practices. Recently other organizations have followed suit with more sophisticated tracking projects. For example, Secure the News and Pulse track HTTPS progress among news media sites and U.S. government sites, respectively.
  • But securing large, popular websites is only one part of a much bigger battle. Encrypting the entire web requires HTTPS implementation to be accessible to independent, smaller websites. Let’s Encrypt and Certbot have changed the game here, making what was once an expensive, technically demanding process into an easy and affordable task for webmasters across a range of resource and skill levels. Let’s Encrypt is a Certificate Authority (CA) run by the Internet Security Research Group (ISRG) and founded by EFF, Mozilla, and the University of Michigan, with Cisco and Akamai as founding sponsors. As a CA, Let’s Encrypt issues and maintains digital certificates that help web users and their browsers know they’re actually talking to the site they intended to. CAs are crucial to secure, HTTPS-encrypted communication, as these certificates verify the association between an HTTPS site and a cryptographic public key. Through EFF’s Certbot tool, webmasters can get a free certificate from Let’s Encrypt and automatically configure their server to use it. Since we announced that Let’s Encrypt was the web’s largest certificate authority last October, it has exploded from 12 million certs to over 28 million. Most of Let’s Encrypt’s growth has come from giving previously unencrypted sites their first-ever certificates. A large share of these leaps in HTTPS adoption are also thanks to major hosting companies and platforms--like WordPress.com, Squarespace, and dozens of others--integrating Let’s Encrypt and providing HTTPS to their users and customers.
  • Unfortunately, you can only use HTTPS on websites that support it--and about half of all web traffic is still with sites that don’t. However, when sites partially support HTTPS, users can step in with the HTTPS Everywhere browser extension. A collaboration between EFF and the Tor Project, HTTPS Everywhere makes your browser use HTTPS wherever possible. Some websites offer inconsistent support for HTTPS, use unencrypted HTTP as a default, or link from secure HTTPS pages to unencrypted HTTP pages. HTTPS Everywhere fixes these problems by rewriting requests to these sites to HTTPS, automatically activating encryption and HTTPS protection that might otherwise slip through the cracks.
  • Our goal is a universally encrypted web that makes a tool like HTTPS Everywhere redundant. Until then, we have more work to do. Protect your own browsing and websites with HTTPS Everywhere and Certbot, and spread the word to your friends, family, and colleagues to do the same. Together, we can encrypt the entire web.
  • Paul Merrell on 25 Feb 17
     
    HTTPS connections don't work for you if you don't use them. If you're not using HTTPS Everywhere in your browser, you should be; it's your privacy that is at stake. And every encrypted communication you make adds to the backlog of encrypted data that NSA and other internet voyeurs must process as encrypted traffic; because cracking encrypted messages is computer resource intensive, the voyeurs do not have the resources to crack more than a tiny fraction. HTTPS is a free extension for Firefox, Chrome, and Opera. You can get it here. https://www.eff.org/HTTPS-everywhere
Paul Merrell

ExposeFacts - For Whistleblowers, Journalism and Democracy - 0 views

exposefacts.org

transparency whistle-blowers resources Wikileaks Tail

shared by Paul Merrell on 06 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • Launched by the Institute for Public Accuracy in June 2014, ExposeFacts.org represents a new approach for encouraging whistleblowers to disclose information that citizens need to make truly informed decisions in a democracy. From the outset, our message is clear: “Whistleblowers Welcome at ExposeFacts.org.” ExposeFacts aims to shed light on concealed activities that are relevant to human rights, corporate malfeasance, the environment, civil liberties and war. At a time when key provisions of the First, Fourth and Fifth Amendments are under assault, we are standing up for a free press, privacy, transparency and due process as we seek to reveal official information—whether governmental or corporate—that the public has a right to know. While no software can provide an ironclad guarantee of confidentiality, ExposeFacts—assisted by the Freedom of the Press Foundation and its “SecureDrop” whistleblower submission system—is utilizing the latest technology on behalf of anonymity for anyone submitting materials via the ExposeFacts.org website. As journalists we are committed to the goal of protecting the identity of every source who wishes to remain anonymous.
  • The seasoned editorial board of ExposeFacts will be assessing all the submitted material and, when deemed appropriate, will arrange for journalistic release of information. In exercising its judgment, the editorial board is able to call on the expertise of the ExposeFacts advisory board, which includes more than 40 journalists, whistleblowers, former U.S. government officials and others with wide-ranging expertise. We are proud that Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg was the first person to become a member of the ExposeFacts advisory board. The icon below links to a SecureDrop implementation for ExposeFacts overseen by the Freedom of the Press Foundation and is only accessible using the Tor browser. As the Freedom of the Press Foundation notes, no one can guarantee 100 percent security, but this provides a “significantly more secure environment for sources to get information than exists through normal digital channels, but there are always risks.” ExposeFacts follows all guidelines as recommended by Freedom of the Press Foundation, and whistleblowers should too; the SecureDrop onion URL should only be accessed with the Tor browser — and, for added security, be running the Tails operating system. Whistleblowers should not log-in to SecureDrop from a home or office Internet connection, but rather from public wifi, preferably one you do not frequent. Whistleblowers should keep to a minimum interacting with whistleblowing-related websites unless they are using such secure software.
  • Paul Merrell on 06 Jun 14
     
    A new resource site for whistle-blowers. somewhat in the tradition of Wikileaks, but designed for encrypted communications between whistleblowers and journalists.  This one has an impressive board of advisors that includes several names I know and tend to trust, among them former whistle-blowers Daniel Ellsberg, Ray McGovern, Thomas Drake, William Binney, and Ann Wright. Leaked records can only be dropped from a web browser running the Tor anonymizer software and uses the SecureDrop system originally developed by Aaron Schwartz. They strongly recommend using the Tails secure operating system that can be installed to a thumb drive and leaves no tracks on the host machine. https://tails.boum.org/index.en.html Curious, I downloaded Tails and installed it to a virtual machine. It's a heavily customized version of Debian. It has a very nice Gnome desktop and blocks any attempt to connect to an external network by means other than installed software that demands encrypted communications. For example, web sites can only be viewed via the Tor anonymizing proxy network. It does take longer for web pages to load because they are moving over a chain of proxies, but even so it's faster than pages loaded in the dial-up modem days, even for web pages that are loaded with graphics, javascript, and other cruft. E.g., about 2 seconds for New York Times pages. All cookies are treated by default as session cookies so disappear when you close the page or the browser. I love my Linux Mint desktop, but I am thinking hard about switching that box to Tails. I've been looking for methods to send a lot more encrypted stuff down the pipe for NSA to store. Tails looks to make that not only easy, but unavoidable. From what I've gathered so far, if you want to install more software on Tails, it takes about an hour to create a customized version and then update your Tails installation from a new ISO file. Tails has a wonderful odor of having been designed for secure computing. Current
Gary Edwards

Wary of Upsetting Mighty Microsoft, Acer Limits Use Android for Phones, Not Netbooks. - 0 views

news.google.com/...url

webkit android acer microsoft netbooks smartphones iphone

shared by Gary Edwards on 09 Apr 09 - Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 09 Apr 09
     
    "For a netbook, you really need to be able to view a full Web for the total Internet experience, and Android is not that yet," Jim Wong, head of Acer's IT products, said Tuesday while introducing a new line of computers."

    Right. Android runs the webkit/Chromium browser based on the same WebKit code base used by Apple iPhone/Safari, Google Chrome, Palm Pre, Nokia s60 and QT IDE, 280 Atlas WebKit IDE, SproutCore-Cocoa project, KOffice, Sun's javaFX, Adobe AiR, and Eclipse "Blinki", Eclipse SWT, Linux Midori, and the Windows CE IRiS browser - to name but a few. Other Open Web browsers Opera and Mozilla Firefox have embraced the highly interactive and very visual WebKit document and application model. Add to this WebKit tsunami the many web sites, applications and services that adopted the WebKit document model to become iPhone ready.

    Finally there is this; any browser, application or web server seekign to pass the ACiD-3 test is in effect an effort to become fully WebKit compliant.

    Maybe Mr. Wong is talking about the 1998 Internet experience supported by IE8? Or maybe there is a secret OEM agreement lurking in the background here. The kind that was used by Microsoft to stop Netscape and Java way back when.

    The problem for Microsoft is that, when it comes to smartphones, countertops and netbooks at the edge of the Web, they are not competing against individual companies pushing device and/or platform specific services. This time they are competing against the next generation Open Web. An very visual and interactive Open Web defined by the surge the WebKit, Firefox and the many JavaScript communities are leading.

    ge
  • David Corking on 09 Apr 09
     
    The Information Week page bookmarked says "NON-WORKING URL! The URL (Web address) that has been entered is directing to a non-existent page" Try this instead http://www.informationweek.com/news/hardware/handheld/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=216403510 Acer To Use Android For Phones, Not Netbooks April 8, 2009
  • David Corking on 09 Apr 09
     
    Microsoft conspiracies have happened in the past and we should watch for them. However, another explanation is that Android does not (yet) support many browser plugins. No doubt that is what the Microsoft drones remind Acer each time they meet with them, along with a pitch for Silverlight 2 !! For me, Silverlight 2 is so rare that I would not, personally, make it a requirement for a "full web". A non-Android Linux distribution on a netbook that ran Adobe Flash, Acrobat Reader, OpenOffice.org and AIR when necessary would suit me fine. One day Android may do all these things to, but for now Google has bigger fish to fry!
Gary Edwards

Siding with HTML over XHTML, My Decision to Switch - Monday By Noon - 0 views

mondaybynoon.com/...er-xhtml-my-decision-to-switch

css html javascript xhtml

shared by Gary Edwards on 03 Jul 08 - Cached
  • Publishing content on the Web is in no way limited to professional developers or designers, much of the reason the net is so active is because anyone can make a website. Sure, we (as knowledgeable professionals or hobbyists) all hope to make the Web a better place by doing our part in publishing documents with semantically rich, valid markup, but the reality is that those documents are rare. It’s important to keep in mind the true nature of the Internet; an open platform for information sharing.
  • XHTML2 has some very good ideas that I hope can become part of the web. However, it’s unrealistic to think that all web authors will switch to an XML-based syntax which demands that browsers stop processing the document on the first error. XML’s draconian policy was an attempt to clean up the web. This was done around 1996 when lots of invalid content entered the web. CSS took a different approach: instead of demanding that content isn’t processed, we defined rules for how to handle the undefined. It’s called “forward-compatible parsing” and means we can add new constructs without breaking the old. So, I don’t think XHTML is a realistic option for the masses. HTML 5 is it.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 09 Jul 08
       
      Great quote from CSS expert Hakon Wium Lie.
  • @marbux: Of course i disagree with your interop assessment, but I wondered how it is that you’re missing the point. I think you confuse web applications with legacy desktop – client/server application model. And that confusion leads to the mistake of trying to transfer the desktop document model to one that could adequately service advancing web applications.
  • Gary Edwards on 03 Jul 08
     
    A CMS expert argues for HTML over XHTML, explaining his reasons for switching. Excellent read! He nails the basics. for similar reasons, we moved from ODF to ePUB and then to CDf and finally to the advanced WebKit document model, where wikiWORD will make it's stand.
  • Paul Merrell on 09 Jul 08
     
    See also my comment on the same web page that explains why HTML 5 is NOT it for document exchange between web editing applications. .
  • Gary Edwards on 09 Jul 08
     
    Response to marbux supporting the WebKit layout/document model. Marbux argues that HTML5 is not interoperable, and CSS2 near useless. HTML5 fails regarding the the interop web appplications need. I respond by arguing that the only way to look at web applications is to consider that the browser layout engine is the web application layout engine! Web applications are actually written to the browser layout/document model, OR, to take advantage of browser plug-in capabilities. The interoperability marbux seeks is tied directly to the browser layout engine. In this context, the web format is simply a reflection of that layout engine. If there's an interop problem, it comes from browser madness differentials. The good news is that there are all kinds of efforts to close the browser gap: including WHATWG - HTML5, CSS3, W3C DOM, JavaScript Libraries, Google GWT (Java to JavaScript), Yahoo GUI, and the my favorite; WebKit. The bad news is that the clock is ticking. Microsoft has pulled the trigger and the great migration of MSOffice client/server systems to the MS WebSTack-Mesh architecture has begun. Key to this transition are the WPF-.NET proprietary formats, protocols and interfaces such as XAML, Silverlight, LINQ, and Smart Tags. New business processes are being written, and old legacy desktop bound processes are being transitioned to this emerging platform. The fight for the Open Web is on, with Microsoft threatening to transtion their entire business desktop monopoly to a Web platfomr they own. ~ge~
Scott Hale

Ask MAMA what the Web is - 0 views

www.opera.com/...15

mama opera web stats

shared by Scott Hale on 15 Oct 08 - Cached
  • Opera Software has led a first-of-its- kind project to create a search engine that tracks how Web pages are structured on the World Wide Web. When released publicly in the coming months, this engine will help browser makers and standards bodies work towards a more standards-driven and compatible Web.Opera today announced results from its MAMA (Metadata Analysis and Mining Application) search engine, a brainchild of Opera engineers that indexes the markup, style, scripting and the technology used while creating Web pages. From the beginning, Opera has been a leading innovator and MAMA is proof of the company’s deep understanding of the Web.The MAMA search engine scours 3.5 million Web pages, and the resulting data can answer questions such as "can I get a sampling of Web pages that have more than 100 hyperlinks?" or "what does an average Web page look like?"—a dream come true for Web developers.
    • Scott Hale
      Scott Hale on 16 Oct 08
       
      This is a great way to analyize general development trends on the web, etc. but will this really lead to a "search engine"?
  • For more information on Opera’s MAMA project, please visit: dev.opera.com/articles/view/mama/
Gary Edwards

Introduction to OpenCalais | OpenCalais - 0 views

www.opencalais.com/...introduction-opencalais

OpenCalais Semantic-Web

shared by Gary Edwards on 27 Mar 15 - Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 27 Mar 15
     
    "The free OpenCalais service and open API is the fastest way to tag the people, places, facts and events in your content.  It can help you improve your SEO, increase your reader engagement, create search-engine-friendly 'topic hubs' and streamline content operations - saving you time and money. OpenCalais is free to use in both commercial and non-commercial settings, but can only be used on public content (don't run your confidential or competitive company information through it!). OpenCalais does not keep a copy of your content, but it does keep a copy of the metadata it extracts there from. To repeat, OpenCalais is not a private service, and there is no secure, enterprise version that you can buy to operate behind a firewall. It is your responsibility to police the content that you submit, so make sure you are comfortable with our Terms of Service (TOS) before you jump in. You can process up to 50,000 documents per day (blog posts, news stories, Web pages, etc.) free of charge.  If you need to process more than that - say you are an aggregator or a media monitoring service - then see this page to learn about Calais Professional. We offer a very affordable license. OpenCalais' early adopters include CBS Interactive / CNET, Huffington Post, Slate, Al Jazeera, The New Republic, The White House and more. Already more than 30,000 developers have signed up, and more than 50 publishers and 75 entrepreneurs are using the free service to help build their businesses. You can read about the pioneering work of these publishers, entrepreneurs and developers here. To get started, scroll to the bottom section of this page. To build OpenCalais into an existing site or publishing platform (CMS), you will need to work with your developers.  Why OpenCalais Matters The reason OpenCalais - and so-called "Web 3.0" in general (concepts like the Semantic Web, Linked Data, etc.) - are important is that these technologies make it easy to automatically conne
Paul Merrell

Digital Web Magazine - HTML5, XHTML2, and the Future of the Web - 0 views

www.digital-web.com/...tml2_and_the_future_of_the_web

blunders css html html5 interop standards xhtml xhtml2 xml

shared by Paul Merrell on 29 May 08 - Cached
  • Paul Merrell on 29 May 08
     
    The browser-centric view of why HTML5 is better than XHTML2. Notice that the entire discussion does not address the need for interoperable data exchange between different web applications, let alone for their interaction with more traditional desktop or mobile device editors. HTML5 is enormously under-specified for data exchange among anything but web browsers. As only one small example, neither HTML5 nor CSS Selectors have a specified standard element for footnotes and footnote calls, let alone attributes for their numbering style, formatting, and location. And even if CSS Selectors included such elements and attributes, CSS lives in web site page templates, not in the web app editors for site content that use HTML forms. Easy pickings for Microsoft and its proprietary stack that does interoperably integrate the desktop, servers, devices, and the Web.
  • anonymous on 23 Sep 13
     
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Gary Edwards

Good News for Ajax and the Open Web - The Browser Wars Are Back - 0 views

www.openajax.org/...rowser%20Wars%20Are%20Back.php

acid ajax openweb webkit

shared by Gary Edwards on 02 Jul 08 - Cached
  • For much of this decade, Web browsing has been dominated by Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE), which at its height achieved market share numbers approaching 95%, with the result that Microsoft owned a de facto standard for the Web and held effective veto power over the future of HTML. During much of this period, Microsoft suspended development of IE, with the result that virtually no new features appeared within the world's dominant browser from 2001 to 2006. But while IE was sleeping, one of the biggest phenomena of the computer age happened: Ajax. Clever Web developers discovered gold in them there mountains. Using Ajax techniques, Web developers could create desktop-like rich user interfaces right in the browser. Not only that, Ajax was evolutionary. Ajax offered an incremental path from the industry's existing HTML-based infrastructure and know-how, allowing Web developers to add rich Ajax elements to an existing HTML page.
  • A companion community effort helping to accelerate the adoption of open standards is the Web Standards Project (http://www.webstandards.org), which is producing a set of "acid tests" that verify browser support for Open Web technologies, such as HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Acid2 is focused mainly on CSS support, and is now supported by Opera, Safari/WebKit, and IE. Acid3 (http://www.webstandards.org/action/acid3) tests DOM scripting, CSS rendering,
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 02 Jul 08
       
      The amazing thing about Ajax and the Open Web is the way WHATWG, WebKit, and the Web Standards "ACID" work has accelerated Open Web Standards, pushing far beyond the work of the glacial W3C.
  • Runtime Advocacy Task Force
  • Gary Edwards on 02 Jul 08
     
    Lengthy artilce from the OpenAjax Alliance summarizing HTML, Ajax and the future of the Open Web. Very well referenced. Lots of whitepapers and links
  • Gary Edwards on 02 Jul 08
     
    good summarization of the Open Web future.
  • anonymous on 02 Oct 13
     
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Paul Merrell

Microsoft debuts early test version of Oxite open source blogging engine | Open Source ... - 0 views

blogs.zdnet.com/open-source

Microsoft oxite cms blogging

shared by Paul Merrell on 10 Dec 08 - Cached
  • WordPress has more competition to be. Microsoft’s Codeplex team has developed an open source blogging engine that can support simple blogs and large web sites such as its own MIX Online.
  • “Oxite was developed carefully and painstakingly to be a great blogging platform, or a starting point for your own web site project with CMS needs,” according to Microsoft.com.
  • Oxite offers support for multiple blogs per site.  ”Oxite includes the ability to create and edit an arbitrary set of pages on your site. Want an ‘about’ page? You got it. Need a special page about your dogs, with sub-pages for each of those special animals? Yep, no worries,” Microsoft continues. “The ability to add pages as a child of another page is all built in. The web-based editing and creation interface lets you put whatever HTML you want onto your pages, and the built-in authentication system means that only you will be able to edit them.
  • Paul Merrell on 10 Dec 08
     
    The ability to create child pages of a parent page is something I haven't seen before in a blogging app. There are a ton of CMS that offer such features, but blogs have been an exception.
Gary Edwards

Running beyond the browser - 0 views

docs.google.com/View

adobe css html javascript ria silverlight webkit

shared by Gary Edwards on 06 Jun 08 - Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 06 Jun 08
     
    Although there are many ways to slice this discussion, it might be useful to compare Adobe RIA and Microsoft Silverlight RIA in terms of web ready, highly interactive documents. The Adobe RIA story is quite different from that of Silverlight. Both however exploit the shortcomings of browsers; shortcomings that are in large part, i think, due to the disconnect the browser community has had with the W3C. The W3C forked off the HTML-CSS path, putting the bulk of their attention into XML, RDF and the Semantic Web. The web developer community stayed the course, pushing the HTML-CSS envelope with JavaScript and some rather stunning CSS magic. Adobe seems to have picked up the HTML-CSS-Javascript trail with a Microsoft innovation to take advantage of browser cache, DHTML (Dynamic HTML). DHTML morphs into AJAX, (which so wild as to have difficulty scaling). And AJAX gets tamed by an Adobe-Apple sponsored WebKit. Most people see WebKit as a browser specific layout engine, and compare it to the IE and Gecko on those terms. I would argue however that WebKit is both a document model and, a document format. For sure it's a framework for very advanced HTML-CSS-DOM-Javascript work. Because the Adobe AIR run-time is based on WebKit layout, WebKit documents can hit on all cylinders across any browser able to implement the AIR plug-in. Meaning, web developers and web content providers need only target the WebKit document model to attain the interactive access ubiquity all seek. Very cool. Let me also add that the WebKit HTML-CSS-DOM-Javascript model is capable of "fixed/flow" representation. I'll explain the importance of "fixed/flow" un momento, but think about how iPhone renders a web page and you'll understand the "flow" side of this equation.
  • anonymous on 23 Sep 13
     
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Paul Merrell

Exclusive: Tim Berners-Lee tells us his radical new plan to upend the - 1 views

www.fastcompany.com/...an-to-upend-the-world-wide-web

Berners-Lee Solid Inrupt web-decentralization

shared by Paul Merrell on 30 Sep 18 - No Cached
iahsankhan liked it
  • “The intent is world domination,” Berners-Lee says with a wry smile. The British-born scientist is known for his dry sense of humor. But in this case, he is not joking.This week, Berners-Lee will launch Inrupt, a startup that he has been building, in stealth mode, for the past nine months. Backed by Glasswing Ventures, its mission is to turbocharge a broader movement afoot, among developers around the world, to decentralize the web and take back power from the forces that have profited from centralizing it. In other words, it’s game on for Facebook, Google, Amazon. For years now, Berners-Lee and other internet activists have been dreaming of a digital utopia where individuals control their own data and the internet remains free and open. But for Berners-Lee, the time for dreaming is over.
  • In a post published this weekend, Berners-Lee explains that he is taking a sabbatical from MIT to work full time on Inrupt. The company will be the first major commercial venture built off of Solid, a decentralized web platform he and others at MIT have spent years building.
  • f all goes as planned, Inrupt will be to Solid what Netscape once was for many first-time users of the web: an easy way in. And like with Netscape, Berners-Lee hopes Inrupt will be just the first of many companies to emerge from Solid.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • On his screen, there is a simple-looking web page with tabs across the top: Tim’s to-do list, his calendar, chats, address book. He built this app–one of the first on Solid–for his personal use. It is simple, spare. In fact, it’s so plain that, at first glance, it’s hard to see its significance. But to Berners-Lee, this is where the revolution begins. The app, using Solid’s decentralized technology, allows Berners-Lee to access all of his data seamlessly–his calendar, his music library, videos, chat, research. It’s like a mashup of Google Drive, Microsoft Outlook, Slack, Spotify, and WhatsApp.The difference here is that, on Solid, all the information is under his control. Every bit of data he creates or adds on Solid exists within a Solid pod–which is an acronym for personal online data store. These pods are what give Solid users control over their applications and information on the web. Anyone using the platform will get a Solid identity and Solid pod. This is how people, Berners-Lee says, will take back the power of the web from corporations.
  • For example, one idea Berners-Lee is currently working on is a way to create a decentralized version of Alexa, Amazon’s increasingly ubiquitous digital assistant. He calls it Charlie. Unlike with Alexa, on Charlie people would own all their data. That means they could trust Charlie with, for example, health records, children’s school events, or financial records. That is the kind of machine Berners-Lee hopes will spring up all over Solid to flip the power dynamics of the web from corporation to individuals.
  • Berners-Lee believes Solid will resonate with the global community of developers, hackers, and internet activists who bristle over corporate and government control of the web. “Developers have always had a certain amount of revolutionary spirit,” he observes. Circumventing government spies or corporate overlords may be the initial lure of Solid, but the bigger draw will be something even more appealing to hackers: freedom. In the centralized web, data is kept in silos–controlled by the companies that build them, like Facebook and Google. In the decentralized web, there are no silos.Starting this week, developers around the world will be able to start building their own decentralized apps with tools through the Inrupt site. Berners-Lee will spend this fall crisscrossing the globe, giving tutorials and presentations to developers about Solid and Inrupt.
  • When asked about this, Berners-Lee says flatly: “We are not talking to Facebook and Google about whether or not to introduce a complete change where all their business models are completely upended overnight. We are not asking their permission.”Game on.
Paul Merrell

Web video accessibility from EmbedPlus on 2011-08-11 (w3c-wai-ig@w3.org from July to Se... - 0 views

lists.w3.org/...0103.html

W3C accessibility youtube web apps

shared by Paul Merrell on 14 Aug 11 - No Cached
  • Paul Merrell on 14 Aug 11
     
    For those who care about Web accessibility, here is an opportunity to provide feedback on some accessibility tools for one of the most widely-used web services. The message deserves wide distribution. The contact email address is on the linked page.  The linked tool set should also be of interest to those doing mashups or embedding YouTube videos in web pages. Hi all, I'm the co-developer a YouTube third-party tool called EmbedPlus. It enhances the standard YouTube player with many features that aren't inherently supported. We've been getting lots of feedback regarding the accessibility benefits of some of these features like movable zoom, slow motion, and even third-party annotations. As the tool continues to grow in popularity, the importance of its accessibility rises. I decided to do some research and found the WAI Interest group to be a major proponent of accessibility on the web. If anyone has time to take a look at EmbedPlus and share feedback that could help improve the tool, please do. Here's the link: http://www.embedplus.com/ Thank you in advance, Tay
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Conspiracy: web pages load slowly because they make more money that way - Business Insider - 0 views

www.businessinsider.com/ake-more-money-that-way-2015-7

conspiracy advertisers publishers business slowing web pages

shared by Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 31 Jul 15 - No Cached
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 31 Jul 15
     
    "And Business Insider recently wrote about the debate over whether ads slow down web pages. Naturally, advertisers blame publishers for being unsophisticated; and publishers blame advertisers for clogging up their pages with heavy downloads."
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