Rich Internet Applications (RIA)

The future belongs to Rich Internet Applications (RIA) – they are increasingly replacing the classical desktop application. And it is no wonder, as this latest generation of web applications offers a totally new kind of interactivity. Furthermore, RIAs spare your budget thanks to their operating system independence and the fact that they can be used without installation. According to the market research organization Forrester Research, RIA technology will be deployed in around 60% of all software development projects in the coming years.

The disadvantage of most of today’s RIA frameworks is that they were developed for the optimization of web sites. They rapidly reach their limits, therefore, with complex business applications. Canoo Engineering’s Canoo RIA Suite with its modular design provides a remedy. It’s heart is ULC (UltraLightClient), a proven and stable component for the development of RIAs – optimized for the performance requirements of business applications. Thanks to the 100% java-based homogeneous programming model, ULC reduces the complexity of RIA projects to a minimum. RIAs developed with ULC score highly due to their low development and maintenance costs, and are more than a match for classical desktop applications in user-friendliness, functionality, attractiveness, robustness and performance.

Since March 31, 2010, ULC Core is available as a Beta Release. The Canoo Ria Suite will be released officially just before Pentecost 2010. The advantages at a Glance:

• Up to 50% reductions in development costs
• Puts business functionality on to the web without quality losses
• Lower operational costs thanks to server side maintenance and standardized technology
• Maximum security thanks to standard conformity
• Straightforward and rapid development due to uniform Java basis
• Robust and scalable architecture
• No longer time-consuming client-side deployment
• Enables highly interactive and user friendly interfaces
• No browser adaptation required
• Optimal user productivity due to rapid response times
• Lower project risk thanks to well engineered, tried and tested technology
• Impressive prototypes in minimal time

“We switched to ULC in the middle of a large software project, as we were not able to implement all the requirements with the technology we were using at the time. ULC then enabled us to at least double our productivity, in turn allowing the project to be completed on time.”

Greg Hutchinson, Principal Developer of a large Canadian financial institution

4/29/2010, Technopark Zurich. By Michael Schneider, IBM Rational Research GmbH.

This talk presents a JavaScript execution engine that allows seamless integration of Dojo-flavored JavaScript code in an OSGi based Java runtime. Doing so allows sharing JavaScript code between Web and Eclipse applications, while still providing distinctive user interfaces using HTML and SWT, respectively. As this technology is already deployed in the latest releases of Rational Team Concert, experiences using this approach are shared.

Additionally, a novel approach to develop and evolve large Dojo-based Web 2.0 applications, called JDojo, is introduced. It brings the Eclipse JDT tooling to the JavaScript language to provide typed API, compile time error checking, refactorings and much more, by using the Java syntax. However, in contrast to other approaches, its design is built around the JavaScript language rather than the JDK. It comes with built-in support for interacting with existing JavaScript code. JDojo works perfectly with the JavaScript engine, thus simplifying the development of Web and Eclipse Applications even more.

Read more and register here!

We are happy to announce the second RIA forum which will take place in Darmstadt (close to Frankfurt), 23rd of April 2010! This time, with Canoo Engineering AG as premium sponsor, four well known speakers will talk about the advantages and disadvantages of four different ways to create effective user interfaces (especially in business contexts).

Instead of giving details here I recommend to visit the forum page directly: http://www.riaforum.com (in German). Please be aware that we can only provide entrance to a limited audience, so if you want to join, make sure you sign up quickly.

Excerpt of  ”Rich Internet Applications for Business”, an article by Hans Dirk Walter, CEO Canoo Engineering AG (in print).

Even if RIA technology continues to expand steadily in the future and the number of purely HTML based applications does decline, it is nonetheless not recommended to resort to an RIA framework or library for technology’s sake alone when developing online applications. Instead, the decision depends on the user interface requirements.

Figure 1 provides a schematic illustration of various categories of application depending on usage, and shows the dependency of these applications with regard to interactivity requirements and interface richness (UI functionality, drag & drop, graphics).

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Typical web applications such as online shopping or rail timetables, that are only occasionally visited by their customers, need to be self explanatory and easy to operate. Speed and sophisticated interaction are of secondary importance in these cases. This type of application is best implemented using form based “wizards”. The functionality offered by HTML is generally more than sufficient in such cases. This does not apply, however, to productive systems, whose users often spend several hours per day with the application. The interface need not necessarily be self explanatory, while training is normally worthwhile. These kinds of application should be developed using RIA technology. The final types of program identified are games, which place the most demanding requirements of all in terms of interactivity (extremely speedy program reaction times in response to rapid successive inputs), as well as sophistication (3D animations, film sequences, etc.) Such application have so far scarcely been realised in satisfactory quality as RIAs.

Excerpt of  ”Rich Internet Applications for Business”, an article by Hans Dirk Walter, CEO Canoo Engineering AG (in print).