MECHENG401:GearsVAIR
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We (SE students) met Tuesday 18 March, and discussed what we had researched about the various frameworks we could use to implement Archivista. We agreed Lotus notes did not meet the requirements, and that it was a difficult decision between Goggle Gears and Adobe Air. The original research can be found here.
Google Gears
- Google Gears is open source. Code availability equates to better understanding of the system.
- Google Gears works with web browsers. This means we only need to develope 1 interface, web interface, for the project.
- Google Gears has an acitive community of users. It is likely that more support and features will be appended.
- It supports local database and automatic synchronization of this local database with the main server database.
Adobe AIR
Original research here.
My (Nick Irvine) case for using Adobe AIR over Google Gears:
- AIR allows the application to be written in html and other web technologies, but escape the browser. This allows such features as:
- Drag and drop files from the desktop into the AIR application
- More access to the local file system
- This means that the Archivista project can be developed as a web service instead of a website
- Archivista can be free of IE/Firefox branding/Look-and-Feel and have its own unique look, that can be fully customised to represent the Auckland City Council.
- AIR has just been released as a 1.0. this means it may be more stable than gears
In summary: "So, if a developer wants to build a rich Internet-enabled desktop application that runs the same way across platforms and devices, does useful work offline, doesn’t use a browser, and directly enables interactive content, it seems that AIR is the only option." (http://flex.sys-con.com/read/514448.htm, 19/3/08)