[svanleent]

One of the first things that concerns me with the original Mozilla's XUL library, which is tailored for use with the browser, is that the XML seems to be very inflexible, that is, one is not really able to insert custom controls. One of the things I would like to see is to have namespaces.

If one is using namespaces, one should not limit oneself by only using one namespace for the core implementation, but rather split the namespaces in logical sections, such as:

xmlns:ctrl for controls such as windows, buttons and dropdown lists
xmlns:layout for layout items such as rectangles, lines, points and dimensions
xmlns:style for style items such as colors and fonts
xmlns:data for data interaction over a certain databus

Good producer and consumer support should be written, I wouldn't find it strange that a GUI runs as lightweight program on a client, and as thus needs to be able to produce and consume data from a databus. A good messaging/signaling system is thus necessary.

Mozilla uses XPCOM, something not already available, which is easier to understand and maintain as CORBA or SOAP, but doesn't support networking. I would go for a databus that is able to listen on network connections as well as local connections (obviously it is not allways wanted to have network access, so this should be an option together with all the security options that belong to it).

It would be good if it is possible to utilize existing libraries such as DWT, Mango, Tango, etc. In certain cases, an easy script engine based on XML might be practical.

Regards,
Sjoerd
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