[Hidden-tech] Anyone making standalone desktop applications to work with web based applications ?

[Rich]

Daniel Fried wrote:
> I have done that with Flash. I've played with AIR, but haven't done anything
> real with it since it's still pre-release (or was last I looked).  
They are on beta 2 -- seems fairly robust.

> I have,
> however, used Flash in stand-alone mode for the same purposes.  Even without
> AIR, Flash can handle interaction with a web server using XML from a
> Projector (an executable that can be generated from the Flash authoring
> environment and does not require a separate Flash player).  The only thing
> that AIR really adds to that is the ability to access the file system and
> registry and the like (also the ability to build applications using HTML and
> JavaScript, but that's a separate issue).
>   
Actually that issue (HTML/JS only) is exactly what we are looking for - 
we have no need for flash nor
care to deal with it.

To add more explanation

The basic idea is we have a project task/time tracking system,
all web based and connected to various resources and data
sources.

It would be a real improvement to have a timer
component as a standalone desktop application, esp
so a browser window doesn't have to open to start, pause
and/or stop the timer.  Running on Windows and Mac is required,
being able to run on a linux desktop would be a real plus.

So far, AIR seems the most advanced without getting too complex,
and Webrunner (a packaged version of XULRunner) looks very
promising - it's basically a standalone mini-firefox including JS.

-- 
Rich Roth
CEO On-the-net

Bringing you complex online systems since the net was young
http://www.tnrglobal.com - http://www.on-the-net.com/rr/