Rich Internet Applications(RIA) for Programming e-Commerce Andrzej P.Urbański Institute of Computer Science Poznań University of Technology

PRESENTATION GOAL What Students should use for e-commerce programming? Choice PHP/MySQL/HTML – todays laboratory equipment Open Laszlo – adviced to my candidates for master certificate, but they rarely wants to learn unknown even during studies tool Why choice is difficult? PHP/MySQL/HTML is too much popular for being seen as a tool for professionals OpenLaszlo is easy to install on PC, but not easy to manage as a laboratory server (Tomcat appl.)

How peole use e-commerce service? before www (and iTunes now) download native code(.exe) from ftp install program on our computer call program which can use Internet connections www:universal browser already installed put http address into browsers field use the latest version of software not bothering to install

Current www disadvantages - HTML Page ServerBrowser page request page code WWW server page script Typically HTML page is updated as a one piece making great redundancy in sending to browser many times the same data. HTML page consist of typical components rather than basic and general drawing instruction.

What is RIA? one page resides for a long time enabling rich functionality like WIN.EXE suitable page parts can refresh on each event, which influence on it user can with the same page make some attempts changing parameters when trying to obtain requested results EXAMPLES: buying sport shoes buying a car

Flash Flash plug-in to browser is additional interpreter of data from Internet rendering them on user’s screen Flash scripts are multimedia rich Flash scripts could be easily partially updated Flash could use vector graphics, but even that typical application is rather slow

XML XML unlike HTML(which is a language bind to browser) could be used for case-specific communication XML could be used as a language to exchange data between server and browser This technique could be much more flexible than sending HTML and even make faster communication than native Flash scripts

Flex 1.0 and 2.0 Flex uses browser’s Flash plug-in, but adds XML communication Flex is expensive, team oriented tool Flex forces usage of Action Script

Open Laszlo Open Laszlo is an easy to install Tomcat application Open Laszlo is an open source Open Laszlo has rich documentation and easy to use tutorial introduction Open Laszlo makes use of Flash plug-in much easier and programmer oriented

Open Laszlo Interactive introduction Amazon in Laszlo Laszlo in entertainment beer adverticing game: WIN-EXE, LaszloWIN-EXELaszlo generalized Tick-Tack Toe shop in rpg game

Frame-based site HTML page is divided on subparts partially covering browser window using Java Script one can selectively refresh any frame from event in any(other) frame OnChange=„parent.FunctionFrame.locat ion.href=content.php?par=1”

AJAX AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTT P"); XMLHttpRequest();

AJAX software libraries AdvancedAJAX 1.1 OpenRico BackBase

Advanced AJAX EXAMPLE: Lookup of the tableLookup of the table

Open Rico EXAMPLES

BackBase.com SHOP PORTAL TRAVEL

What is appriopriate for my students? Commercial are too costly Tomcat-based are too much resource consuming. Flash plug-in based are not necessary for students experiments OpenRico is probably too much complex Advanced AJAX is the most promising

Thank you