almost Flyton?

[Dave Brueck]

Ksenia Marasanova wrote:
> Laszlo went Open Source:  http://openlaszlo.com/
> 
>  From the description:
> """
> LZX is an XML and JavaScript description language similar in spirit to 
> XUL and XAML. LZX enables a declarative, text-based development process 
> that supports rapid prototyping and software development best practices."""
> 
> The presentation server works on "J2EE application server or Java 
> servlet"...
> But it may become optional in a few months!
> 
>  From http://www.davidtemkin.com/:
> """
> With Laszlo's new business model built on top of an open-source 
> platform, we are now in a position to make the presentation server an 
> optional component of a Laszlo deployment. Sometime over the next few 
> months, we'll release a build that allows you to compile LZX files on a 
> developer's machine, and post the resulting SWF to a Web server. The SWF 
> in the browser will communicate with XML and media sources directly, 
> with no intervening presentation (proxy) server. For many Laszlo 
> applications, this will mean no need to install Java on the server, no 
> need to deal with new servlets or test presentation server scalability."""
> 
> Now we only need a Python library to generate LZX... and Flython is 
> born? ;-)

I've been keeping up on the Laszlo forums, and it looks like Laszlo has a lot of 
what I'd want in a Flash-based GUI framework, except for one thing: currently, 
interaction between Laszlo and the "host" container (e.g. the browser) is very 
limited.

For it to be usable as a GUI, there needs to be at least some sort of two-way 
communication possible. Laszlo currently lets you call "loadURL", which you 
could use as a mechanism for calling a browser Javascript function, but that's 
hacky at best. Also, there doesn't appear to be a good way for the host to 
generate events or call functions inside the Laszlo application.

Supposedly support for all this is in the works, so if it gets implemented then 
maybe it could be a basis for Flyton. :)

-Dave