Build Ajax-based Rich Internet Applications

June 2007

BookTrader WalkThrough

This easy-to-read guide is designed to help you get up and running with Morfik AppsBuilder as quickly as possible by walking you through the building an application from start to finish. It is not a replacement for the manuals, but can be used to give you a solid practical introduction on how to the use Morfik AppsBuilder. For further information, make sure you check out the other Morfik documentation such as the Developer’s Handbook and Languages Guide.

In this guide, you will be walked through how to replicate one of the projects that is in the Sample folder, called BookTrader which is a project under the theme of a fictitious on-line book trader. The purpose of this particular application is to show you a number of the fundamental concepts and features of AppsBuilder. The guide’s purpose is to lead you through the making of this application in a step-by-step approach so that you can get a tangible understanding of how to make web applications with AppsBuilder. For access to this guide, please visit MorfikWiki .

Using Morfik Scriptor Projects

What is Morfik Scriptor?
The first thing you might wonder is, what exactly is Morfik Scriptor? Scriptor, despite any ideas that the name might suggest, is just a utility built into the AppsBuilder IDE. It is basically a script generator with which you build complex browser-side code, in high-level languages.

You must write all of the code by hand, just as you would if you were using JavaScript and you still need to have some knowledge of HTML and the Document Object Model (DOM). All your complex logic code is written in any of the four high-level syntaxes that are supported by AppsBuilder, just as with a common AppsBuilder project. However, as an aid, a base HTML file is created for the project which you can modify as you wish.

When to Use Scriptor?
There are two main reasons you might wish to use the Scriptor to create a project: to create a page that you are going to use in conjunction with some pre-existing web site and will not be deploying a full Morfik built application or when your objective is to create a complex browser side script such as when implementing a math algorithm or game logic, instead of endeavoring to create a fully fledged application.

Such scripts can be run locally, without the requirement of having access to the server. It is important to note that due to browser architecture limitations such applications are not able to save any information on the user’s computer, except of course through the use of cookies.

For the full article please visit MorfikWiki .

Understanding Morfik Plastic Layout

Morfik Plastic Layout is specifically developed for building Rich Web Applications (RWA). When building such applications there is a greater need for control over the layout of the application interface.

The need for greater control over layout is a common feature of other similar platforms such as Flex from Adobe, Silverlight from Microsoft and JavaFX from Sun. Morfik does not use the Flash plug-in or any other similar binaries, instead, Morfik uses a specialised development tool (WebOS AppsBuilder) combined with advanced AJAX techniques to achieve the required level of control that a developer needs over the application interface layout.

Apart from the fact that no plug-in is used, this approach has the added benefit of maintaining the familiar ‘web experience’ for the end user - something that is lost when using rich applications developed on the other platforms. For more on this topic visit MorfikWiki .

Morfik Trial on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

Morfik has began trials of the Morfik XApps on Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), the first of which can be seen here.

“Amazon EC2 is a web service that provides resizable compute capacity in the cloud. It is designed to make web-scale computing easier for developers.

Just as Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) enables storage in the cloud, Amazon EC2 enables "compute" in the cloud. Amazon EC2's simple web service interface allows you to obtain and configure capacity with minimal friction. It provides you with complete control of your computing resources and lets you run on Amazon's proven computing environment. Amazon EC2 reduces the time required to obtain and boot new server instances to minutes, allowing you to quickly scale capacity, both up and down, as your computing requirements change. Amazon EC2 changes the economics of computing by allowing you to pay only for capacity that you actually use.”

As you will be aware, Morfik Labs already has an example of an XApp which works with Amazon S3 and shields you from the complexities of S3 web services by offering a simple and intuitive File System for access to Amazon S3 storage. In addition to storing a synchronized and local copy of all your S3 files in a database, the XApp allows you to include other working files which you can process and upload to S3 at any later date.

Morfik Announces Development Tool for the iPhone

Morfik today announced the ability of its WebOS AppsBuilder to develop web-based applications and complex browser-side code for Apple’s iPhone.

Web 2.0 applications can now easily be designed for the iPhone with Morfik’s AppsBuilder, opening the possibility of quickly extending “iPhone’s capabilities without compromising its reliability or security”.

Members of Morfik's staff have been working to create versions of existing Morfik applications optimized for the device's screen. “It is only a matter of adjusting the layout of an application so that it can fit directly into the iPhone's native resolution, without expressly relying on its built in zoom capabilities." said Martin Roberts, a Morfik engineer.

Morfik AppsBuilder empowers developers to create sophisticated applications, from games to database-oriented business services that are written in a high-level language of their choice, are 100% Ajax based and run across all major browsers including the iPhone's built-in Safari.

An example of such an application for the iPhone is iChess