On Apr 26, 8:44 am, lkcl <luke.leigh...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> the purpose of browsers is to isolate the application, restrict its
> access to the rest of the desktop and OS, so that random applications
> cannot go digging around on your private data.
Well, I would agree that a "requirement" for the browser is to help
insure the user's safety, but would argue that the *purpose* is
somewhat more functional than that :-)
> many browsers _used_ to allow access to local files etc. but ...
> yeah.
I know. But, with most browsers, you can say "yes, I know I'm
downloading this Java program. I know it can have its way with my hard
drive. Trust me; I know what I'm doing here." Same thing with Adobe
or Microsoft stuff: silverlight, AIR, flash, PDFs. Basically, the
browser delegates ALL security control at that point. I just think it
would be nice if the browser could delegate a _little_ security
control to the user ("allow this JavaScript program to read/write
arbitrary files in this directory"; possibly with a total file size
limitation) for programs that can run inside the browser.
>
> so i think you will be able to do what you describe _if_ you provide
> a browser plugin which adds the required functionality.
Agreed. Alternatively, of course, you could have code to let the user
"download" to a local file from the application's local storage area
for backup purposes, but that seems suboptimal.
> google gears would be a good place to start (i've part-ported GWT
> Gears to pyjamas - the SQL storage modules - to demonstrate what's
> needed).
I think even gears assumes a database under the browser's control; not
an arbitrary node in the filesystem. Also, I think gears is no longer
being developed. Of course, gears could be OK as a starting point,
but really what you are saying is that everybody wanting to use this
new file local storage feature would need an add-on. I agree that's
probable, but in that case it's only really worth doing if a lot of
projects would use it. I'm not sure if that will come to pass or not
-- it would need a lot of programmers to think that it was a great
thing.
OTOH, if a particular browser supported this functionality natively,
then it might be a competitive advantage if applications did develop
to support it.
> if however you completely ignore browsers from the equation, by
> virtue of having to piss about writing c code, then yes, you can use
> pyjamas-desktop. at that point, you have _full_ access to the entire
> OS and system, because you're firing up the web browser engine as a
> python application.
That's understood (and a great thing). But if programmers could use
pyjamas in the browser without an extra download to get to all the
desktop features (which is how it *appears* to most users when they
use flash or something like that), that would be a great win.
Alternatively, a single small download of a broswer add-on package to
bring pyjamas desktop features into the browser (maybe even just for
mozilla for now) would be awesome, as well.
Regards,
Pat
--
http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
