using the browser as an activity platform : pyxpcom / hulahop / Gears

[Samuel Klein]

The core use here is being able to use the browser as activity
platform -- letting web developers good at JS code and test on most
any platform, and develop something that can be a first-class activity
within Sugar.  One example is Dan's javascript spreadsheet, anothe ris
a dynamic library (see for instance
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Dynamic_library), another is an existing web
service online that one might want to run locally.

In addition to pyxpcom, let me add Google Gears as a useful piece of
this platform, especially when offering local use of popular online
tools.  Off the top of my head, MediaWiki, MindMeister, I copy Ben
Lisbakken, a gears maintainer, who reports that there is a Gears patch
to make it work without extension support...  Ben, I'll also introduce
you to marcopg separately.

SJ

On Feb 16, 2008 12:36 PM, Samuel Klein <sj at laptop.org> wrote:
> Moving this thread to devel.   SJ
>

Marco wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I'm really excited about this work. Hulahop is one of the things which
> I'd really to develop further but I never get time for it. So it's
> awesome you guys are looking into it.
>
> I agree with Tomeu, though. Please move the discussion on the public
> mailing list. Can someone take care to post a summary of the discussions
> and the work which has been done so far?
>
> Thanks!
>
> On Feb 16, 2008 11:54 AM, edward baafi <edwardbaafi at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hi Luke,
> >
> > It appears from your code snippet that you have a browse activity build
> > which has pyxpcom enabled..  Is this built by default on Joyride?  If not,
> > how can you best get me access to your pyxpcom enabled environment?
> >
> > What I've discussed with SJ and Manu is a somewhat different approach than
> > what you seem to be pursuing..  We're looking at wrapping core functionality
> > we want access to from javascript (ex: launching journal to browse for or
> > save a file) in xpcom interfaces..  Then one could simply write javascript
> > code to manipulate the DOM with hooks into sugar stuff like journal,
> > presence, sharing, etc..  I'm not sure how Mozilla's privileged code model
> > will relate to bitfrost, but I think this route is worth pursuing..
> >
> > Alternatively, if you are interested in using python to manipulate the DOM,
> > this is also possible directly
> > (http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/PyDOM)..  This should be possible in
> > your build or it is a simple config (--enable-extensions=python,default)
> > change..
> >
> > Looking forward,
> >
> > Ed
> >
> >
> >
> > On Feb 14, 2008 5:47 PM, Manusheel Gupta <manu at laptop.org> wrote:
> > > Luke,
> > > Thanks for the update.
> > >
> > > I wish to introduce you to Edward Baafi, who has been working with PyXPCOM
> > for a long time. Me, SJ, and Edward had a detailed discussion about
> > JavaScript-Sugar integration yesterday. Komodo, a project from the
> > ActiveState Community is an interesting use-case that can be very useful to
> > the Spreadsheet project.
> > >
> > > Edward directed us to the following links:
> > >
> > > http://www.mail-archive.com/sugar@laptop.org/msg02285.html
> > >
> > > http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Mail/Message/pyxpcom/3476506
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Edward,
> > > Thanks a lot for your pointers.
> > >
> > > Regards,
> > > Manu
> > >
> > >
> > > Manusheel Gupta
> > > Technical Consultant and Adviser
> > > One Laptop Per Child Inc.
> > > http://laptop.org
> > >
> > >
> > > On Thu, Feb 14, 2008 at 3:25 PM, Luke Closs <luke.closs at socialtext.com>
> > wrote:
> > >
> > > > Hello guys,
> > > >
> > > > So tonight I made some progress on the python <-> js communication,
> > > > and I also better understand how activity load/saving should work.
> > > >
> > > > In my python code, when I set up the WebView object, I can
> > > > addEventListener for the 'click' event.  Then I create a python class
> > > > that is called when I click on the HTML page.  In the event listener,
> > > > I can check for event targets with a certain id.
> > > >
> > > > I set this up for a certain span in a simple HTML page, and my python
> > > > code could grab the content from inside the span, and change it!  The
> > > > code looks like this:
> > > >
> > > > class EventListener:
> > > >     _com_interfaces_ = components.interfaces.nsIDOMEventListener
> > > >
> > > >     def handleEvent(self, event):
> > > >         t = event.target
> > > >         if t.id != 'count': return
> > > >         elem = t.queryInterface(components.interfaces.nsIDOM3Node);
> > > >         print elem.textContent
> > > >         elem.textContent = '42'
> > > >
> > > > web_view.window_root.addEventListener('click', EventListener(), False)
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > With this bit of understanding, I need to start thinking about exactly
> > > > how we'll integrate with the spreadsheet.  I'll start thinking of the
> > > > 2 main actions:
> > > >
> > > > save:
> > > > * python fires event to say "start saving"
> > > > * js runs code to create the content to be saved, sticks it into an
> > > > element
> > > > * js fires event to say "ready to save" on the element
> > > > * python reads textContent from event target
> > > > * python saves to disk
> > > >
> > > > load:
> > > > * python reads from disk
> > > > * python writes content into dom
> > > > * python fires event to say "ready to load"
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > I need to extend my simple test program to save/restore data between
> > > > runs, and then to save into the dom.  From what I read, my activity
> > > > just needs to implement read_file and write_file...
> > > >
> > > > Anyways, I'm going to sleep on this.
> > > >
> > > > BTW, I'm going snowboarding at Whistler tomorrow evening, and taking
> > > > Friday off.  The weekend looks busy, so I can't promise any hacking. :)
> > > >
> > > > Cheers,
> > > > Luke
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
>