Glue Wiki

A GlueWiki is a RichClient Wiki. Wiki User Interfaces are ThinClient user interfaces because they were invented before the advent of Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AjaxWebApplications or by the acronym AJAX). Thin clients expose the request-response model of HTTP to the user by requiring a page submission whenever data persisted on the server has to be accessed or modified. Page submissions cause a refresh of the whole UI. The core difference between a thin and a rich client user interface is the granularity of change of the UI. For a thin client, the granularity of a change/refresh is the whole display area whereas for a thick client, parts of the user interface can be changed independently of others.

Many of the web backend programming models in use today take the request-response constraints of HTTP for granted. For instance, servlets, JSPs, PHP and perl have post/get/request handlers which operate on streams. Even when the backend models are totally separated from the UI, as in EJBs, the front end still needs to be tied in to the backend using a layer of servlets or JSPs which work on the basis of requests and responses. Wikis reflect the thin client paradigm because editing pages requires the submission of the entire page or of a subsection. The use of subsections or portlets does not really change anything because editing a page causes the whole page to be submitted, though just a part of it may be edited at any given time. Rich client applications have UIs that can alter and refresh parts of the screen. In a rich client application, certain widgets on the screen can be selectively hidden, made visible or altered without disturbing the rest of the UI real estate.

Thin client applications can be given rich interfaces using front end technologies like Ajax. Ajax stands for Asynchronous Javascript and XML. It allows Javascript to talk to the web server without the page having to be submitted. Supported on most browsers, it is used in portals like google maps, google suggest, and expedia. However, there exists no technology similar to the thin client Wiki that exploits Ajax. A rich client Wiki for Ajax could potentially bring to Ajax UIs the same ease of use/creation/modification that Wikis bring to the thin client world-wide web. GlueWiki is a thick client Wiki built by the FlorantaProject. It can be used for the XP PlanningGame as described in AgilePlace.

See a GlueWiki at http://www.floranta.com

CategoryWikiImplementation