OpenLaszlo Rings in the New Year with Flash 9 and DHTML Runtimes

Posted by Scott Delap on Jan 02, 2007

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Development

Topics

Java ,

Languages ,

OpenLaszlo ,

Programming ,

Rich Internet Apps

OpenLaszlo is starting off 2007 with a beta candidate of version 4 of the OpenLaszlo platform. This is a significant release as it includes a new DHTML runtime target in addition to the previously available Flash based runtime.  OpenLaszlo competes in the Ajax/RIA space with traditional Javascript based Ajax frameworks and Adobe's Flash based Flex API.  The OpenLaszlo SDK consists of a compiler written in Java, a runtime JavaScript library, and an optional Java servlet that provides additional services to the running application. OpenLaszlo applications are programmed using a mix of a declartive XML UI language and ECMAScript based syntax. The OpenLaszlo runtime framework provides a foundation for applications by including UI components, a data binding API, network services, etc.

OpenLaszlo 4 which started development in 2006 adds in target runtimes of Flash 9 and DHTML to the previously supported Flash 7 and 8. Including DHTML support will allow developers to program "Ajax" style applications at a higher abstraction layer than interacting with Javascript and DOM elements directly. Work is also being done in conjunction with Sun to provide a JME target runtime.