With the full flower of RIA-Rich Internet Applications [think DHTML and Flash tecnologies] Web GUI is starting match those available on the desktop – be that Windows 7 with its Aero goodies or Apple Snow Leopard with its refined look and often copied navigational features. Here is an example from Adobe PDFs – the electronic container of choice for illustrators and artists. Let me show you a PDF on the Web as powered by Issuu.com:
Here is another example. Now just below is a screenshot of a Windows desktop displaying the same PDF in the desktop Acrobat 8.10 reader using the default features:
What Issuu.com has done in refining PDF’s presentation on the Web is to improve on the presentation side with nicer navigational and control features. Even if one looks at Acrobat.com and notes whats Adobe has made available there, the comparison is in favor of Issuu.com – here is a screen shot of the same PDF at Acrobat.com:
Now some will argue that drag and drop, multi-touch with gestures, and vector or bitmap drawing are still not available on the Web. But that is changing. SVG for vector drawing is available from Firefox and Opera; and will be part of the HTML 5 spec which also brings bitmap drawing to the Web. Gestures has been a part of Opera for a longtime while most popular JavaScript frameworks deliver drag and drop capabilities that are fairly simple to program.
Here are the two leading RIA technologies that photofinishers and designer will want to follow closely. Flash/Flex/Air from Adobe got a big win with the release of the NYTimes offline/online Digital Paper Reader[ see here for details]. This technology demonstrates the power of Flash media delivery and offline operations.
Web 2.0 DHTML=HTML+CSS+JavaScript is the other RIA leader. Apple, Firefox, Google and Opera are all pushing browser technology so fast that Microsoft Internet Explorer is being left way behind. Also the HTML5 stanadrd as seen above has pushed the state of the browser art.
Microsoft Silverlight is tragically flawed with its proprietary extensions, “Must run best in Windows” philosophy, and the incomplete cross platform and cross browser support.
In sum, be aware of what is rapidly being made available in the RIA arena – Web 2.0 and Cloud Computing is coming to the design and photo worlds.