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IBM Media Open Source Programming Python

Maqetta: Open Source HTML5 Editor From IBM 121

Posted by timothy from the so-there-would-be-these-images dept.
PybusJ writes "IBM has released an online HTML5 editing tool called Maqetta, hosted by the Dojo Foundation. eWeek calls it an open source answer to Flash and Silverlight. That remains to be seen, but it does look interesting."
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Maqetta: Open Source HTML5 Editor From IBM More

Maqetta: Open Source HTML5 Editor From IBM

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  • Holy fuck. It makes Eclipse and VS feel fast. (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Good gosh, this thing actually makes Eclipse, NetBeans and Visual Studio feel fast and efficient.

    • Maybe you should try it when the site's not been slashdotted...

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Maybe you should try it when the site's not been slashdotted...

        Been using Maqetta for past week (read news via eWeek) and it's not that the site is slashdotted, it simply darn slow.. The things is slow even when running locally (the distribution is bundled with jetty 7).

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          I wonder what's the thing with open source IDE's. They're all so damn slow. In comparison Visual Studio actually does work fast and is efficient to use.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by daid303 ( 843777 )

            Code::blocks is open source, and it never slows down on me. Not even on my laptop.

      • We should try an IBM service when its not being slashdotted... IBM, self proclaimed enterprise, cloud, IT leader... Is that a joke?

    • Re:Holy fuck. It makes Eclipse and VS feel fast. (Score:5, Informative)

      by MemoryDragon ( 544441 ) on Friday April 15, 2011 @07:22AM (#35827256)

      Well the entire thing is coded in dhtml, not html5 but pure dhtml which scales down to firefox 3.5.
      And actually it is not that slow, it is ok and what you can expect from a pure html + javascript solution.
      The neat thing about this is, it puts out pure dojo widget code, which is heavens sent if you want to generate
      dhtml forms rather quickly.
      The downside is it pushes out the more easily readable pseudo tag code

      which is slower on browsers which do not have document.querySelectorAll than the programmatic initialisation (nevertheless pseudo attributes are a no go before html5 as well where the syntax for those things was finally finalized)

      Either way thanks ibm and this is a neat thing. The dojo library undeservedly is rather unknown it is one of the most extensive javascript libaries out there and one of the oldest as well, and one of the cleanest designed ones as well.
      Jquery is utter junk compared to it, but it does not reach entirely the code quality of the YUI 3 lib.

      • How long do you reckon it will be slashdotted?

        Also... Really? Plain text password on the activation email? Really?

      • The dojo library undeservedly is rather unknown...

        Quite the contrary, it is deservedly unknown. Have you tried to do programming with Dojo? The documentation is terrible. You can never figure out how to accomplish even the most trivial of tasks if you even wander an inch off the beaten path shown in the examples. Ever heard of the phrase "An undocumented feature is a feature that doesn't exist"? By that token, Dojo is the javascript framework that has the least set of features.

        I also have a problem with the way the library is structured - it is painfully h

        • I have programmed with dojo several years and if you go to www.dojocampus.org you have quite a good documentation outside of that, there are several really good books.

          The extension points of the widgets are hit and miss several are rather easy to extend and a handful of them quite hard, but that is to be expected by a widget lib.

          • I have programmed with dojo several years and if you go to www.dojocampus.org you have quite a good documentation outside of that, there are several really good books.

            Or you could just use jQuery, which has good official documentation, a good community, and is faster to boot.

            • The jquery core itself is just about 1% of the extensiveness of the dojo core, mainly the query part and a little bit of xhr and events, and that part is well documented, everything else is a myriad of extensions. Some of them well documented some of them utter garbage not even working not a single line of documentation.
              I would not even closely compare dojo and jquery. Jquery does not even cover the ground the dojo core covers and both have about the same bootup times. Things become slow in dojo as soon as

          • Re:Holy fuck. It makes Eclipse and VS feel fast. (Score:4, Informative)

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 15, 2011 @11:37AM (#35830032)

            Yeah, I would agree that the documentation is extensive on dojocampus.org if it wasn't so frequently vastly and utterly WRONG. I've been developing with Dojo since somewhere around .08 (circa 2005 I think) and even back then it was attrocious - but rightly so - it was a new project with an overwhelming number of people who jumped in the pool. And for versions 1.3 through 1.5 the documentation was often never updated. The documentation would say in big bold headers - This documentent is outdated please click here for the new documentation - which every single one of those links pointed to dojocampus.org - THE HOME PAGE, not the actual updated documentation for said specific feature - because more often than not that page DIDN'T EVEN EXIST. I'm not lazy and am willing to then research for the new answers except that if they existed they were so frequently wrong that I personally deem the dojo project and utter failure. Sure I was able to bend the framework to my needs when forced to, and figure out why the hell line 75,278 threw a JS error, but I would never start a project with that POS again.

            And to even suggest books as an alternative indicates to me that you haven't worked with DOJO for a LONG time (by tech standards anyway) because the last books published for this pile of garbage were in 2008 - and they were some of the last books I will ever purchase on computing due to their innaccuracies and outdated mode of technical coverage. Even those books admittedly report that the content in the books is deprecated but should be applicable until version 2 - which was over 3 years ago - and they are still only at 1.6 and they are still just as innaccurate as they were in 2008 because those Russell is about as naive to think the interfaces would be backwards compatible for that long as equally naive he is on the practicallity of the framework to begin with.

            And even had they been more accurrate (a feat I don't blame Russell for because no one could be expected to properly document about it in it's persistent state) they still let you down - Mastering Dojo should be a lot more than just how to use their widgets out of the box. I would have much rather seen more than 20 pages of documentation on how to use their abstract databinding interfaces for remote data in all of its variant forms with regard to a few key controls than over 100 pages of What is AJAX and Why use Object Oriented Programming in Javascript (WHICH IS A FUCNTIONAL LANGUAGE!!!!) Instead you get a grade school level of understanding when you expect a Black Belt level of intimacy as the pretty cover and double entendre would suggest.

            When you have a javascript client side framework that is over 21 MB ZIPPED!!! you have a fundamental architectural and maintenance problem that is there to stay. It is a perfect concrete representation of the conceptual frustrations I have the the JAVA community as a whole and why I'm ashamed that I couldn't release my HTML based HTML composer that produces clean developer quality html markup before IBM released Maqetta because it's the type of solution that if done correctly can really spurr development versus wasting cycles on building a page from scratch every time - but when that development comes with the cost of DOJO that solution could just turn out to be a scar that nobody wants to revisit but for the wrong reasons.

            Even the DOJO build systems are terrible - they do not work as designated and past that have platform incompatibilities that produce entirely different results from when you build on Windows versus Linux. The architecture promotes the direct importation of over 50 separate libraries without the build, which from a "designed for the masses" perspective is a FAIL because you end up with people who hack in the results and produce a lag time on page load that is worse than YUI in it's early days.

            The widget aspect is nice, but the dependencies and points of frequent failure between them is unbearable. I've worked with some difficult and poorly documented sy

            • Actually I am working with dojo as we speak, we dont use too much of it just the core the query part and a handful of widgets, and it works out quite well.
              The core itself can be reduced to 50k of code if you pack everything in with all the dependencies you have about 200k of code. What you talk about the 21 MB is the source all its tests all the documentation and whatever comes with it. As soon as you isolate what you are using you are down to something smaller.

              You can compare a full dojo distribution with

            • PS: Jquery, I have worked with jquery as well extensively. You can use it nicely from the core, but as soon as you hit the widget area it becomes an utter mess, some widgets are really good but some are utter garbage and you often end up with fixing a myriad of bugs to get the thing going. Trying a pure functional approach and having a non existent real widget api does not help either. The code often ends up in a mess and things which could be isolated with inheritance are exposed fully which makes often w

    • Could be that it's Slashdotted, not that it's inherently slow.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I use NetBeans daily and have no problems with its speed or efficiency... but full-blown IDEs like your examples are very large and complex applications, and I have a workstation designed for such development tasks. Use the right tool for the job... don't try to run an app that's heavy by its very nature on a system made for web browsing and email. You wouldn't try to do heavy 3D rendering or high-end gaming with nothing but desktop on-board Intel video an expect good performance, would you?

    • You don't need any of that anyway. HTML and it's associated companions are easy enough to do with any text editor. If you can't do that, you have no business coding websites. Hand-rolled is still the only way to get efficient, secure code for websites, especially if you're providing much in the way of content or process payments.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jimrthy ( 893116 )
        OTOH...unless you're a security expert, an individual hand-rolled solution is just begging to be hacked.
        • By that definition all competent coders who hand-roll websites are "security experts". I don't agree, but it's something I could add to my resume I guess... :)

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by jimrthy ( 893116 )

            Well, by *that* definition, pretty much no coders are competent.

            The NSA assumes they've been hacked. Unless your doctorate thesis focused on cryptography and programming security, you really don't have much chance to get it right by yourself.

            • Well it is true a web coder can only be as secure as the DBA, server, and network admins allow, but assuming competence in those departments one can still make an awful lot of choices that affect security.
  • Is that a 'Q'? How am I supposed to pronounce it? Makketa?

  • HTML5 != Flash/Silverlight (Score:3, Insightful)

    by RingDev ( 879105 ) on Friday April 15, 2011 @07:21AM (#35827238) Homepage Journal

    HTML5 is not a Flash/Silverlight replacement. It does some things better, it does somethings worse, but for the majority of the functionality of Flash and Silverlight, HTML5 just doesn't do it.

    There is awesome stuff you can do in HTML5 and Javascript, but it's still no replacement for a dedicated sandbox. Especially with the new hardware accelerated XNA 3-d graphics and sound coming from Silverlight 5.

    -Rick

    • Re:HTML5 != Flash/Silverlight (Score:5, Interesting)

      by TheRaven64 ( 641858 ) on Friday April 15, 2011 @07:32AM (#35827310) Journal
      It would help if you could give some specifics. 'A dedicated sandbox' is a pretty meaningless thing, since all JavaScript does run in a dedicated sandbox. Some of the things HTML5 can do:
      • OpenGL ES via WebGL.
      • 2D vector art, either immediate mode via canvas tags or scene graphs via SVG.
      • Audio and video playback, via (scriptable) audio and video tags.
      • Get network data without going through HTTP via WebSocket.

      So, what can you not do with HTML5 that you can do with Flash / Silverlight?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Threni ( 635302 )

        I understand Google use flash for their file handling in the browser; ie adding attachments etc. Can you browse network drives, select multiple files, get their stats/remaining disk space etc in html5?

        I don't want to sound trolly as I'm not a web developer. It seems people are trying to do more and more in the browser to make the online experience a bit less crap and more useful like a normal application, but with a sandbox based-security system. I had hoped that something better would replace the browse

        • I don't want any web page to be allowed to read all my files!

          My browser is allowed to read my files, but code from a third-party (Flash, Javascript, Java, or anything else) should always go through a trusted dialog to let me select with files it can read. If the Flash plugin actually allows third party code to manipulate files, I'm going to remove it right away...

      • Re:HTML5 != Flash/Silverlight (Score:5, Insightful)

        by dkf ( 304284 ) <donal.k.fellows@manchester.ac.uk> on Friday April 15, 2011 @07:41AM (#35827404) Homepage

        So, what can you not do with HTML5 that you can do with Flash / Silverlight?

        With HTML5, you can't lock yourself in to a big corporation's strategy for hating users in various ways.

        Damn you HTML5 for making things open!!! :-)

        • Sure, but you must realize the advantages of working in flash too. Flash is consistent across platforms ... try that with HTML (even HTML5). Flash supports a consistent set of playback formats across all it's implementations. Flash supports audio (and video) recording and sending to a server (needed for e.g. a softphone).

          Flash, unfortunately, has lots of things no "open" solution has.

      • So, what can you not do with HTML5 that you can do with Flash / Silverlight?

        Well, just one thing I would like to be able to do is to record audio (preferably live).

        Oh, and availability of an actual 8-bit datatype would be nice.

      • So, what can you not do with HTML5 that you can do with Flash / Silverlight?

        Can you sync sound with vector animations?
        Can you interact with the webcam or microphone?
        Can you do videos with alpha channels?

        I honestly don't know the answers to those questions but they are some of the more advanced stuff that im pretty sure - im not a flash dev so i'm not entirely sure - can be done in flash and not sure if the can be done in HTML5 (yet).

    • Re:HTML5 != Flash/Silverlight (Score:4, Insightful)

      by maxwell demon ( 590494 ) on Friday April 15, 2011 @07:37AM (#35827374) Journal

      Silverlight doesn't work on Linux. Which means they can add features like crazy, I'm still not interested.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by RingDev ( 879105 )

        Which is a great point for using the correct tool for the job. If your goal is 100% market penetration, you'll be writing HTML4 for years to come, so the debate over HTML5 vs Flash vs Silverlight is entirely moot anyway.

        If you're willing to drop some small percent in favor of a more robust interface, you can switch to Flash. Drop some more and you're in HTML5/Silverlight penetration range.

        But clearly, if your target audience is Linux users, you'll either not want to use Silverlight, or limit your functional

        • If you're willing to drop some small percent in favor of a more robust interface, you can switch to Flash.

          It's not about what percentage of people can use your site. It's about how much money you can pull in. iOS in the big picture has a fairly small percentage of the overall market compared to the desktop. Despite this, many mainstream sites have redesigned their sites with html5 and h264 video.

      • Silverlight does work on Linux. [mono-project.com] Which means they can add features like crazy, but I'm still not interested.

        FTFY

    • HTML5 is not a Flash/Silverlight replacement. It does some things better, it does somethings worse, but for the majority of the functionality of Flash and Silverlight, HTML5 just doesn't do it.

      HTML5 + JavaScript/ECMAScript + SVG + WebGL have the potential to act as a delivery platform for most of what Flash/Actionscript does (I've used flash a lot, but haven't used Silverlight). Plus, there's node.js to potentially offer a server-side solution.

      What's lacking currently is (a) nice development tools similar to Flash Pro or Flex (depending whether you want code-based or visual development), (b) a clear winner in the Javascript application framework stakes (Until TFA is de-slashdotted I assume Maq

  • Better then miss america (Score:3, Funny)

    by spliffington ( 1130983 ) on Friday April 15, 2011 @07:22AM (#35827254)
    Here is it. An open source answer to flash. Like Gimp to Photoshop. Here it is.

  • To this very day, I have never ever seen silverlight in action. Where is it used? I'm sure someone will pipe in with some links but still, in every-day casual browsing and such, where?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by capnkr ( 1153623 )
      Netflix.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      CTV's live streaming Olympics video feed was all in silverlight

    • It used to be used for streaming by the company that I rent DVDs from, but after their trial period they realised that no one had Silverlight installed, and everyone was clicking on the 'watch online' link, seeing it required downloading some crap they'd never heard of, and just gave up. They switched to Flash before the official launch. Apparently Netflix uses it, but they only do business in the USA, so are irrelevant to 90% of Internet users.

      • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

        by nstlgc ( 945418 )
        When was this, 5 years ago? By now, Silverlight has a penetration rate of over 70%. And over 95% of those are Silverlight 4.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward
          I thought even MS was pretty much done with Silverlight by now. They didn't run any sessions on it at their last PDC and their response to that was that Silverlight was now their mobile development platform for WinMo 7, but with their increasing focus on HTML5 as the better cross platform solution, it seems likely Silverlight is going to die a death pretty soon. Besides, market penetration only matters if people are using it - 70% of PCs have it because it's pushed on users, but advertisers and developers w

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Eskarel ( 565631 )

            Silverlight is very good, and they're still putting new features into it.

            However the reality of the world is that what with Apple refusing point blank to put anything like it onto iOS and the current fetish with making everything run on mobiles even where it doesn't make sense, we're going to be stuck with what HTML 5 can provide for the immediate future. The reality of course is that what HTML 5 is capable of isn't really all that much more than what HTML 4 could do, even if the browser in question fully s

        • "70%" is only according to microsoft, more reliable sources put it at about 60% (e.g. http://www.statowl.com/plugin_overview.php [statowl.com]).

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Unfortunately the UK Ordnance Survey Mapping [ordnancesu...sure.co.uk] site has just changed to use it. Nice to know that our government is spending out tax money on a site that requires you to buy commercial software to use. I uploaded a lot of walks routes before it changed, but since I use Linux and it is not Moonlight compatible I cannot do it any more.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by pmontra ( 738736 )
        It could be worse. Italian's public broadcaster (http://www.rai.it) switched to Silverlight a long time ago, both for live streaming (all broadcast channels are replicated on the web) and for archives. I fire up one of those Windows VM I use for testing with IE when I really need to see something there. What would you say if BBC switched to Silverlight too?

        • BBC is not RAI, Rai is controlled by the government, the government is controlled by Berlusconi, Berlusconi has interests in broadcast TV which are in conflict with the entertainment value offered by internet, therefore Rai can use silverlight.

      • While I can appreciate your thoughts on the whole silverlight vs Linux issue (a home user of Ubuntu), I checked out the site and found it a truly fascinating tool. Were I to visit England I could see how this would be a great help in getting off the main tourist paths and really getting to see the countryside.

        I do not see (or can find) an equivalent site for the United States. Perhaps because of our size it is harder to implement, perhaps our self centered politicos think that a site like this would take

    • I have come across several websites that use silverlight. Unfortunately, I do not remember what they are, since I promptly navigated away and never went back.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by chrish ( 4714 )

      The folks at Dundas Data Visualization [dundas.com] have a nice Silverlight-based digital dashboarding solution. (Full disclosure: I used to work for Dundas, but I didn't do any Silverlight stuff there.)

      Netflix apparently uses it, and, um, some other video-streaming things. And there are demos.

      I think MS is showing some ADHD with Silverlight; they seemed really gung-ho about it, and then sort of fizzled out when it didn't immediately kill Flash and take over the net. And they appear to have boned their partners again by

  • Since it is Open Source it just can't die like happened with IBM HotMedia.

  • Er, do I understand correctly that this "maquetta" is a closed version of the open, W3C-compliant Amaya software that exists since 1996?
    http://www.w3.org/Amaya/ [w3.org]

  • is it genuine Microsoft Native HTML5?

  • is this supposed to be an answer to flash? if yes, then these guys have utterly failed. flash is orders of magnitude easier than this, faster than this and does things these guys can't even attempt to imagine. in flash when i create a new file, i get a toolbox on the left (like photoshop), i can select the paintbrush tool, right click on it to change its size and start drawing. i can click on the next frame and draw again, create a tween between them. honestly, this maqetta thing doesn't seem to be built wi

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