Re: More in the box web components ?
Hi Harm,
I'll jump in on Andrew's behalf on account of the fact that he's currently on his way to Australia (it's alright for some!)
I think it's probably a wider question than focusing on specific components. I'm not sure whether it was at a conference or on here somewhere, but I recall someone once asking if there were any plans to write a "javascript library integration wizard" in the same way as we have such a thing for creating the wrapper classes for .ocx components. The answer, reasonably, was no, because in the web-world things are a little less rigid (for want of a better word) than in the windows-world, and such libraries can vary, wildly. For example, some may be HTML heavy whilst others may be a lot more javascript heavy. But that said, it could be - hence the question - that Data Access identify such a library that they think they could work with for such a wizard to be possible. The end result being that whilst there mightn't be a generic "import javascript library wizard", there could be a vendor/library-specific one; for example an "Import DHTMLX library wizard" (I used DHTMLX as an example just because they've been the example elsewhere in this thread). And that being so, I/we wouldn't want to invest in other libraries in the meantime. (I remember investing in some DBI-Tech .ocx components a few months before DAW adopted the codejock components. In time it just made more sense to ditch the DBI-Tech ones and also go with codejock for consistency).
That all said, if you were to push me then yes, there are components that I would like to see .... but I also appreciate that if you asked 10 other developers you'd get a list of 20 other components! It's impossible to please us all!
From a mobile/tablet application viewpoint, simple is always best, and I think that we can already do a lot with what we've got in this area. Requirements for integrating with offline memory and phone cameras and the like are outside of DAWs domain because they require other technologies (Phonegap/Cordova). But with regards to the desktop style web application, I can see that I would absolutely need to invest in other libraries/components. Our (my) clients' benchmark for such applications is probably Office 365 and so they would just expect to see a RibbonBar (whether we like them or not) and probably an Outlook-style shortcut bar. I know that there is an argument that says "web is web and windows is windows and you shouldn't constrain the web to look like windows" but in reality for a lot of our clients it's all about familiarity, and the applications they currently use are all styled in a very similar, familiar, windows-y way.
"My wife thinks I over-analyse our marriage, which, to be frank completely contradicts the findings of my report." - @MooseAllain