[whatwg] about rich internat applications

[Erik Arvidsson]

Dean Edwards wrote:

> it is possible to do the reverse. it would be possible to define any 
> components required by web forms in xbl. then transform them (possibly 
> xslt) to dhtml behaviors. it would require a certain amount of 
> discipline on behalf of the developer but the benefits are huge. one 
> code set to maintain. another advantage is that the *actual* source code 
> exists in xbl (an open source technology). this is probably easier said 
> than done but it is definitely very doable.

I've been thinking about this as well. I started the simpler solution 
that involved making Mozilla support HTCs... I never got as far as you 
did thought ;-)

The main issue with getting HTCs to emulate XBL is that I've yet to come 
up with a good way to implement anonymous content for IE and anonymous 
content is one of the cornerstones for XBL. Do you have any ideas in 
this area?

Element behaviors might be the best way to achieve this but they are too 
heavy weight to be of real use (one document per element). Another 
alternative is to override the DOM methods/properties on the element but 
this will not hide the content if accessed using interfaces provided by 
other objects.

erik