Active web browsers

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In USoft Web Designer 9, the creation of HTML has moved to the client. The server has become a hatch that serves files on request. The advantages of this approach are:

The processing power of the client is used.

The client has knowledge of the local conditions like type of browser, available resolution, locally stored data, etc.

JavaScript can be used, which is a much more powerful language than XSLT which was used in USoft 8 to produce HTML server-side.

Network load is reduced.

This innovation has been made possible by the recent sophistication of web client devices. The clients of today are no longer the simple machines they were a couple of years ago. Also, standards are now much better implemented, making it easier to create websites that can be interpreted by different browsers. Even smartphones have more than enough power to perform this task.

The processing that USoft Web Designer 9 expects clients to perform, aspects of data interaction are carefully separated from user interface (UI) aspects - the latter are responsible not for content, only for visual aspects and surface behavior.

All data-related elements use the same data layer (udb), which is documented here and implemented in the file "usoft.db.js".

UI-related elements use the same USoft UI library, which is documented here and implemented in files called "usoft.ui[.*].js".

The USoft 8 file Interface.js still exists, but redirects the calls to perform the same task on the udb interface. The file CustScript.js has not been changed. All USoft 8 obsolete functions have been moved to Obsolete.js. The rest of the USoft 8 JavaScript files have been removed.

WD_clip0021

Overview of .js files enabling active web client interpretation

 

See Also

The Web Designer Stack

Web Publications

Authentication and Authorization