Rich Web Apps: WICD and UWA

Moving beyond the limitations of today's Web!

• Fulfilling the potential of XML to enable a richer end-user experience via combining markup languages
• Reducing the cost for delivering an effective user experience across a wide variety of devices and browsers
• The promise of ubiquitous networked devices and the means to address it through work on device coordination and remote user interfaces

Compound Document Formats WG

• Initial focus on XHTML+SVG with plans for adding other markup languages e.g. XForms, SMIL, MathML and VoiceXML
• Consistent, interoperable treatment of presentation and behavior across different markup languages
• Combination by reference
• Combination by inclusion

Compound Document Formats WG

• Members: Abbra, ACCESS, DAISY consortium, Ericsson, Helsinki University of Technology, IBM, Ikivo, Infraware, Justsystem, Mercurial Communications, Open Text, Opera Software, RIM, Streamezzo, Sun Microsystems, Teleca Sweden, Vodafone
• Primary but non-exclusive focus on mobile applications
• 2.8 billion mobile phones today with 1.6 million new phones each day!
• WICD Mobile 1.0 - Candidate Recommendation 20 April 2007
  • XHTML with SVG Tiny by reference
• WICD Mobile 2.0 - to add combination by inclusion and support for XForms

WICD = Web Interactive Compound Document

Why XHTML + SVG?

• Resolution independent scalable graphics
• Interactivity
• Rich Web Controls
• SVG Fonts embedded in SVG content that can be used for rendering XHTML content
• Replaces today's dependence on bitmapped images in place of text when specific fonts are required, e.g. for branding purposes

Viewing WICD content

• Native browser support
• Browser plugin (might be required by mobile network operator)
• Dedicated viewing application
• Via browser fallback mechanisms

WICD Features

• Graphically rich content, possibly including animated background image
• Layout adaptation to match device
• Navigation, graphical menus, interactivity and animation
• Portable user interface
• Customize presentation to reflect branding
• Skinnable user interfaces

• WICD Mobile 1.0
  • Combination by reference
  • XHTML Basic 1.1
  • ECMAScript 3rd edition Compact Profile
  • CSS Mobile Profile 2.0
  • SVG Tiny 1.2
  • User Agent identification
  • Document Object Model
  • XMLHttpRequest
  • Focus Navigation model
  • Content packing

• For more details see http://www.w3.org/2004/CDF/

Dealing with Device Diversity

• Thousands of devices with hundreds of properties
  • Different device characteristics, and different browsers with different capabilities and different bugs
• Testing becomes a nightmare!
  • assuming you can even find developers with knowledge of all the different platforms!
• Solution is to decouple authoring from device details
• Separately describe policies for adaptation to particular devices and user preferences
• DIAL is a markup language aimed at authors and intended as target for content adaptation
  • profile of XHTML2, XForms and DISelect
  • doesn't need to be supported by browsers

Challenges for Content Adaptation

• Ontologies for device descriptions
  • DD WG for server-side access to generic immutable properties
  • OMA BT-DCAP and DPE for server-side access to changing properties specific to given device without overloading the network
  • UWA WG coordinating work on ontologies
  • DCCI for dynamic client-side adaptation
  • DISelect for content selection
  • CSS Media Queries for style selection
• Support for Richer End-User Experience
  • Declarative ways to describe behavior
  • Logical events and behavioral component libraries
  • DIAL v2 to add WICD and XBL

Ubiquitous Web Applications

• Incorporates a very wide range of devices
• Physical world of sensors and effectors
• Access to local and remote capabilities
• Autonomous agents that act on behalf of their users

Etching RF circuitry onto silicon along with microprocessors, resulting in very low additional cost to add network connectivity to all kinds of devices

Agent acts as both client and server

Examples of Devices and Applications

• Security sensors, door locks and cameras
• Safety sensors: smoke, Carbon Monoxide, pollution
• Lighting, heating and other environmental controls
• Household appliances: washing machine. freezer, etc.
• Remotes and flat screen displays/TVs
• Media servers, digital recorders and home gateways
• Phones, printers, scanners, cameras, projectors, etc.
• Satelite navigation systems

Applications Areas

• Home security, surveillance, safety
• Greater energy efficiency in homes and offices
• Monitoring and diagnosing faults before they occur
• Home entertainment
• Office equipment, mobile and automotive

Home Network Example

Challenges for Ubiquitous Web

• Multiplicity of rapidly evolving network technologies
• Devices kept for long times — resulting in mix of product generations and vendors
  • Old applications must work with new devices
  • Old devices must work with new applications
• Security is absolutely critical
• Preserving people's privacy

How to create applications that address the above issues and which are easy to use for ordinary people?

Ubiquitous Web Apps WG

• Device Coordination with descriptions, binding and use of local and remote capabilities/services
  • Layer on top of existing mechanisms like UPnP
  • Leverage Semantic Web for discovery and access control
• Use of events and DOM objects as proxies to decouple authoring from networking and transport mechanisms
• Simplest devices exchange events at logical level
  • More powerful devices are programmed using markup and scripting
  • Event driven state models of behavior State Chart XML (SCXML)
    • Leverages widespread experience with UML
    • Combine SCXML with device coordination mechanism for use in defining behavior and controlling remote UI's
• Remote UI through event exchange (REX)
  • Extensible XML grammar for transport of DOM events
  • Device controls master DOM and UI works off slave DOM

Events and DOM Proxies

REX and Remote UI

New Vistas for Web Applications

Dublin, Ireland Workshop 5-6 June 2007

Come and help us to better understand the future of Web authoring and how to apply declarative techniques to model distributed Web applications!

Details at: http://www.w3.org/2007/02/dmdwa-ws/

See you in Dublin, the epicenter of Guiness lovers everywhere!

Join W3C and participate in the Ubiquitous Web Applications WG, for more details, see http://www.w3.org/2007/uwa

Summary of Talk:

• Fulfilling the potential of XML to enable a richer end-user experience via combining markup languages
• Reducing the cost for delivering an effective user experience across a wide variety of devices and browsers
• The promise of ubiquitous networked devices and the means to address it through work on device coordination and remote user interfaces