Tonight I’ve experimented a little with Ruby Web Dialogs. I really, really like the concept, except for the fact that if people see a webbrowser they know they’re looking at a web application.

Instead of re-inventing the implementation independent XML I’d like to make use of already existing efforts, as stated before: XUL, XAML or UIML. I’m however not sure whether using a web-server (even locally) is fast enough, though I can certainly see some advantages (if the server is not local):

1. Networked computing (server generates code for thick clients)
2. Easy distribution of code
3. Use of existing technology like Rails

Maybe this all could work easily through a new Rails template like RJS, RHTML or RPDF, think RXUL (.rxul)?
OR maybe we can (re)use code from rubyclr?

Here’s some example RubyWebDialogs code:

require “rubygems” 
require “rubywebdialogs” 

	
RWD = <<EOF
  
EOF
	

    
This is the first page.
    
  



  
    
       
This is the first tab on the second page.
    
    
       
This is the second tab on the second page
       
counter
       
    
  




	
class TestTabs < RWDialog
  def main
    @counter = 1
  end
end


	
def second
  @rwd_window = "second" 
end


	
def increase
  @counter += 1
end


TestTabs.new(RWD).serve