Preface:

This is a research paper on OpenLaszlo, an open source plate form for the development of RIA(Rich Internet Application).

 

Introduction to OpenLaszlo: 

OpenLaszlo is an open-source platform for developing user friendly Web Based applications that have the features and functionality of traditional desktop applications. OpenLaszlo is becoming popular due to its flexibility, relation to Flash and its support of DHTML. OpenLaszlo can be define in following ways;

 “OpenLaszlo is an open-source platform for the development and delivery of rich Internet applications on the World Wide Web.” [1][2]

   “OpenLaszlo is an end-to-end system for creating Rich Internet Application.”[3]

We can also define it as to make its definition simpler that OpenLaszlo is flash technology for developing Rich Internet Application. Some may ask why flash here? So we have to describe some fact regarding to flash and that is we know that Flash player itself is not open source, but it is freely available, often pre-installed, and widely deployed on 97% of user desktops.

While OpenLaszlo takes advantage of Flash, it also gives you independence from it. OpenLaszlo has three modes, one of which give the independence from it, these modes describe later in details. Because of its architecture, it's not tied to Flash the way Macromedia Flex is. It will support future versions of Flash, as well as other platforms as they become more widespread. The Flash authoring tool may be used to develop content for OpenLaszlo applications, but it is not required.  

 

Now let’s talk about its new addition the support for DHTML.

DHTML is not a platform or a framework instead it was designed to add limited interactivity to a web page.

Now the fact is
Ajax is asynchronous of xml and JavaScript.But we now Ajax Technology already exist before OpenLaszlo then why we need the new one, the answer is so simple the major obstacle, now a day we are facing, is browser incompatibility, a application written in Ajax/DHTML run well in one browser but not in other so we need a platform to solve these kind of problems.

 What makes it "write once, run everywhere." The Flash technology and DHTML support. We know that all browsers come with java run time environment and flash player embedded in them. Flash like DHTML is rendering technology.  

 

 OpenLaszlo Components: The OpenLaszlo platform consists of three main components [1]:

1.  1. The OpenLaszlo compiler takes an OpenLaszlo source files and compiles it into a Flash file that runs in any browser.  
2.  The OpenLaszlo Runtime Framework includes user interface components, data binding, and network services.
3.  The OpenLaszlo Servlet enables runtime support for additional media types and for SOAP and XML-RPC.  

Conclusion:

At the end I can conclude that OpenLaszlo is a open source Ajax plate form which has a programming language LZX that is nothing just xml with embedded JavaScript, its compiler generate .swf file from .lzx file it also generates DHtml output instead of swf file in this case developer only write code in LZX and browser will run it by using java runtime engine. It’s a worthy
Ajax technology that is going to rule in future near. 

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References: 

[1]: http://www.openlaszlo.org/faq

[2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenLaszlo

[3]: http://www.topcoder.com/tc?module=Static&d1=features&d2=030807

 

 

 

 

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