A graphical user interface toolkit approach to thin-client computing

  • Authors:

  • Simon Lok;Steven K. Feiner;William M. Chiong;Yoav J. Hirsch

  • Affiliations:

  • Columbia University, New York, NY;Columbia University, New York, NY;Columbia University, New York, NY;Columbia University, New York, NY

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the 11th international conference on World Wide Web
  • Year:
  • 2002

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Abstract

Network and server-centric computing paradigms are quickly returning to being the dominant methods by which we use computers. Web applications are so prevalent that the role of a PC today has been largely reduced to a terminal for running a client or viewer such as a Web browser. Implementers of network-centric applications typically rely on the limited capabilities of HTML, employing proprietary "plug ins" or transmitting the binary image of an entire application that will be executed on the client. Alternatively, implementers can develop without regard for remote use, requiring users who wish to run such applications on a remote server to rely on a system that creates a virtual frame buffer on the server, and transmits a copy of its raster image to the local client.We review some of the problems that these current approaches pose, and show how they can be solved by developing a distributed user interface toolkit. A distributed user interface toolkit applies techniques to the high level components of a toolkit that are similar to those used at a low level in the X Window System. As an example of this approach, we present RemoteJFC, a working distributed user interface toolkit that makes it possible to develop thin-client applications using a distributed version of the Java Foundation Classes.