{ July 1, 2004 }

Dashboard: Apple's ActiveX?

Ever since Dashboard was unveiled at the WWDC this past week, I've been following the slow leaks of technical information about the widgets (er, gadgets), with most of the good stuff coming from Dave Hyatt. Then this morning working examples of the gadgets appeared online. Between viewing the source code of the gadgets, cross-referencing Hyatt's posts, and attempting to use the gadgets in any browser other than Safari, one point became painfully clear -- Apple could be launching their own proprietary, non-standard browser API that looks, smells, and feels like ActiveX.

For years I have railed against ActiveX, due to the proprietary, closed nature of the API. As I wrote about in an earlier post about web banking, lots of people are coding web apps around it, and thus requiring their end-users to use Internet Explorer. I'm all for technological progress, but it would be hypocritical to say that Apple's Dashboard controls are any different from Microsoft's attempts at extending the browser to the operating system.

It'll be months (if not a full year) before Dashboard lands on Mac users' desktops, so a lot could change between now and then. But at the moment, is Apple really doing anything all that different? The gadgets are constructed using the familiar chicken soup of HTML, CSS, JavaScript and what-not (which is very cool), but the interaction, animation, and motion is accessed through the operating system. Without which, none of the gadgets will work in anything other than Safari. Not Firefox, not OmniWeb, not Opera, and certainly not Internet Explorer for the Mac.

Now, this analogy assumes someone would construct a gadget and place it in a public web page, which won't happen outside Mac / OS X related sites (if at all). But by empowering Safari - and Safari alone - to interface with the gadgets, web developers adding said gadgetry would both break their validation (if it ever validated) and segment part of their content away from any non-Safari web browser or mobile device. Sound familiar?

But perhaps I'm making too big a deal out of all this -- Dashboard gadgets will likely be used almost exclusively on the OS X desktop. But by their very architecture, they could be deployed online, which should sound an alarm with anyone who supports web standards.

Update (7/2/04): Hyatt has written an excellent explanation of what makes the gadgets tick. CSS3? Amazing.

Update (7/1/04): Thanks to numerous readers more astute than myself, I've been corrected on a few points. One, Safari enables motion and other animation effects in the gadgets through WebKit, so any OS X application -- including web browsers -- can tap into the new functionality (to prove it, you can open the example gadgets in OmniWeb or even the new RealPlayer and they work fine). Two, adding non-standard extensions to a browser doesn't necessarily make the browser less standards compliant. It opens the possibility of deploying proprietary content, but that decision is ultimately in the hands of the developer.

For me it all boils down to this -- I hate the fact that perfectly valid XHTML / CSS doesn't display identically in every "standards-supporting" browser available today. There are far too many hacks web developers have to employ to cover up bugs that are the result of application developers not spending enough time working on their rendering engines. Proprietary hoo-ha only serves as an unnecessary distraction.

Comments

Todd,

I haven't had a chance yet to really look in earnest at the various Dashboard announcements but I did see this announcement from Mozilla.org about a new consortium to overhaul the old Netscape plug-in API. This sounds like they want a more “ActiveX” like architecture, i.e. scriptability. The group has not only Mozilla, but Sun, Apple, Opera, Macromedia, and Adobe. Maybe I am mixing apples and oranges, and missing the point but you may want to take a look.

http://www.mozilla.org/press/mozilla-2004-06-30.html

Posted by: Joel Reed at July 1, 2004 12:21 PM

Your point is well taken (if Microsoft was to do something like that, people would probably be much more up at arms), although it's important to keep in mind that that functionality was added to WebKit, not Safari specifically. The goal of it was really to facilitate Dashboard, not necessarily to enable rich widgets within web pages. It just so happens that the rest of the OS shares the same HTML rendering code as Safari.

Posted by: Buzz Andersen at July 1, 2004 12:30 PM

Indeed Buzz has the right way of thinking about the issue. Apple is not bring this "technology" to the web, but rather enabling people to build desktop "things" with web technologies. Besides, Microsoft already has "Active Desktop" which is just a webpage as your desktop...

Posted by: Pat at July 1, 2004 12:38 PM

Maybe I am missing something here. But, isn't the point that these are desktop applications? Isn't the idea that, like Konfabulator, the apps float freely in your working environment? These are not meant to be web-standard compliant, browser-based, applications. The fact that you use very familiar scripting to create them (Javascript, HTML, FLASH, etc.) just makes them easier and more flexible to create, opening the world of widget, er - gadget, creation to you and me. They have to have operating system level functionality or they'd be useless - they'd be web pages. I don't know about you, but I don't want to land on kottke.org and have that guy switch my currently playing iTunes song. But it would be nice to have a little desktop app that does it.

So, to me, the difference between this and Active X is that Active X was made so your browser could do more with your operating system. It looks like gadgets are made for your operating system to do more with your browser.

Now I am sure I have not researched this enough just yet, and I have not looked at ANY code, but what exactly do mean when you say that they only work in Safari? I have only seen them on the desktop. I am fine if they use the Safari rendering engine or something to actually appear. Are you suggesting the gadgets themseves should be cross platform? That seems like a bad idea right out of the gate.

I guess I am confused.

Posted by: chris at July 1, 2004 12:48 PM

I think the other major difference is that many people developing with ActiveX feel that they are still developing for everyone (or at least enough people,) whereas noone is going to think that developing these things on the Mac.

Posted by: David Schafer at July 1, 2004 1:03 PM

Certainly, the intent of Dashboard's gadgets are for the OS X desktop. And I would be surprised to see anyone add them to their web site. But the point I was trying to make is that by their very architecture, they *could* easily be implemented on a public web site. And like anything in technology, if it can be done, it will -- whether by Joe Schmo, or Apple. What concerns me most isn't the current iteration of Dashboard (which -- lol -- isn't even OUT YET) but what could be done by adding proprietary APIs to one of the most standards-compliant browsers around.

Posted by: Todd Dominey at July 1, 2004 1:08 PM

I personally am not so suspicious about this technology. I think it's konfabulous, in fact.

The guts of every gadget is the same sort of stuff we already make interactive web pages with. XHTML/CSS/JS/Flash. The only things OS-specific are the hooks into the OS like the ability to get battery juice levels, airport signal strength, etc. Most gadgets, initially at least, will not even use this sort of functionality. A weather tracker gadget doesn't need to know anything about my system to show me the weather. It's just basically WebKit without the browser chrome, in that case. Just a big div with a transparent PNG for the background and nicely-formed data inside of it.

Gadgets like this could easily work on other platforms that supported windowless controls. I personally think this is the best case out there for a PC version of Safari... this weekend's topic on Mike Industries.

Posted by: Mike D. at July 1, 2004 1:17 PM

I wouldn't go so far as to say that it's Apple's ActiveX. Of course, I didn't attend WWDC and don't have a copy of Tiger. From a technology perspective, ActiveX is an extension of COM which is a proprietary Microsoft technology generally accessed thru C++ interfaces. There's a barrier to entry with programming ActiveX (complexity) and an inherent security risk since the code can basically (sweeping generalization here) do whatever its creator would like. Dashboard's use of HTML, CSS and JavaScript isn't proprietary (excluding any tag extensions), the barrier to entry is much lower (TextEdit will do just fine) and since you're not executing a binary code image, the ActiveX security issues aren't present.

I don't see how this could be considered lock-in/proprietary on the same level as ActiveX.

Posted by: Christopher Gervais at July 1, 2004 1:33 PM

From what I read, Apple recommends using Safari in developing the widgets, because it's based on WebKit. I'd expect some enterprising Mac developer to use WebKit to create a nice Dashboard IDE to develop the widgets in, might even make a nice commercial app.

While it does seems that the widgets would live on your desktop, would it be possible to host a widget on a server, and use it on your desktop? This would work like a Mozilla XUL application, or like Microsoft's XAML, right?

Whatever happens, Apple always seems to bring interesting technology to the party...

Posted by: Pete Prodoehl at July 1, 2004 1:40 PM

I've always lived by the philosophy that Apple is no better than Microsoft, they just make better tools and toys. This philosophy has served me well.

Posted by: kubricklove at July 1, 2004 1:42 PM

One commentator elsewhere made the comparison to Hypercard, which may well be apt. This may well be a toolkit for the masses in the way that HC was--which of course, was a wonderful revolution that only happened on the Mac platform. (I saw Bill Atkinson demo Hypercard at Georgia Tech back in the day, by the way.)

As far as even discussing browsers in your post, Todd, I don't get it--as others have said here, the enhnacements are in WebKit--NOT in Safari, and the action is outside of and independent of the browser experience.

Even though Dashboard encompasses HTML, CSS, and JavaScript (plus Apple core technologies) it's as related to web browsing as the Apple Music Store (which is basically an XML browser) is.

It doesn't matter what browser you want to use day to day--the dashboard stuff will work on your desktop--as long as you have a Mac running 10.4.
And yeah, that makes it proprietary in that sense. But somehow, after struggling to make COM and DCOM work in the land of ActiveX, I really don't care all that much.

Posted by: jcburns at July 1, 2004 1:59 PM

I really don't see the point you're trying to make. Gadgets run in Dashboard which in turns runs on the desktop in a very specific fashion ("Exposé-like") and Safari is only used as part of the development of those applications, not as their container.

What I see is that more developers will use XHTML/CSS/ECMAScript/DOM to produce rich interface applications and that will push web standards to their limits, which actually is a good thing. And people like me, who have no experience with Cocoa, will have access to a familiar development technology.

Seeing Apple joining Mozilla with others to redefine a standard plugin architecture should reassure you that they're not going into an ActiveX-like direction with respect to the browser.

Posted by: padawan at July 1, 2004 2:44 PM

Extracted versions of of the demoed Tiger widgets are available (probably for a limited time) here: at the Veland Show.

No system level events function, but some (Calendar, Calculator, Tile Game) are fully functional and the source is right there, so have a look and see what they do.

Posted by: Xian at July 1, 2004 3:05 PM

You're certainly perceptive, Todd, but I would agree with several others here that I'm not so suspicious.

It seems to me, from what I can tell, that the widgets are cross-platform in every way except the animations and the functionality which does things with the system, such as iTunes. Perhaps I'm not seeing something.

As far as I can tell, this is no big deal. If someone adds a widget to their site, well, it might as well just be plain XHTML/CSS/JS/whatever, as the only thing missing would be the animations and the system interaction (which nobody in their right mind would put on their website anyway, unless they had malicious intent).

I think I can confidently say that Dashboard will not be applied in anything online, such as banking systems and other web applications. I'll refute the "duh" response by saying that Dashboard wouldn't be a big online utility even if Safari were the dominant browser. It just doesn't offer much for a web app that can't be done with standards. It's clearly intended for desktop use.

Posted by: Chris Vincent at July 1, 2004 3:11 PM

Thanks to everyone for the illuminating comments. There's so much FUD swirling around about Dashboard it's hard to sort the whole thing out.

It's a relief (of sorts) to know that the functionality is actually being added to WebKit, and not Safari alone, for with that any browser that's built on the kit (including OmniWeb and - interestingly - the recently released RealPlayer beta) will have access to the functionality.

I guess I'm a bit of a purist when it comes to browsers, and get a little anxious whenever anyone adds something in the mix that makes its functionality unique.

Posted by: Todd Dominey at July 1, 2004 4:20 PM

I have to side with Todd a little bit here, in that the versions posted online ONLY function in Safari. That doesn't sound very standard to me. There's obviously something else going on that would require some programming knowledge beyond your typical HTML/CSS/JS.

Posted by: Tim at July 1, 2004 4:22 PM

I'd say that what Apple uses for the iTunes Music Store is a lot closer to ActiveX. ActiveX is compiled code that was used in a way similar to Java applets in many browsers. Dashboard, on the other hand, appears to be HTML and JavaScript with some proprietary extensions. I'd say it's more like XUL at this point, although I haven't delved into the code of the examples.

The iTunes Music Store doesn't use WebKit. In that case, it's proprietary Apple GUI components that have hooks into WebObjects that are using HTTP as a transport mechanism. You're never going to "view source" on the Music Store since it's using a data feed to populate a set of actual GUI components.

Posted by: Mike Harper at July 1, 2004 4:27 PM

I don't get the furore at all.

The extension of Web technologies in this instance is entirely a good thing, and notwithstanding I don't see how this development will threaten Web standards.

Why?

If Apple intends to jump at some point from XHTML to XML, that takes care of one standard and adds the power of a second - SVG - meanwhile.

Why any software publisher would corrupt CSS is over my head - and it's entirely possible that Microsoft would try to stop them if they did. (Bear in mind, Microsoft holds the IP rights to CSS.)

...And after taking a look at the gadgets, I was reminded of something integral to the ECMAScript and DOM specs: the document object exists in the context of the window object... which is no less arbitrary with regard to context than the other JavaScript object classes. There's no reason at all why these gadget window coimponents can't be provided by Apple in an API in much the same way they're provided by GTK and VB...

So, uh, where's the standards support issue again? Web standards were never intended to intrude upon the demesne of the operating system.

Posted by: ben at July 1, 2004 4:45 PM

Ok, so now that we have moved beyond the "proprietary" discussion, lets' look at some of the "real" possibilities of this.. I'm currently building a cms for an artist website. This tool allows them to manage their gallery contacts, bio, address book, and of course their database of images. It's written using XHTML, JS, CSS, PHP, and MySQL. Now lets take a look at the possibilities of Dashboard from an end-user application standpoint. The person I'm writing this software for is not very familiar to web - based applications.. Cut to the chase.. with Dashboard, I will be able to leverage my toolset to build clean local applications that can manage all the heavy lifting (Think of doing all the image processing - scaling, thumbnail generation, color correction, etc - on their local machine without having to upload the image to the web server first, and then do all the manipulation.. Mac OS X comes with PHP/Ruby/Python/PERL installed by default.
And with 10.4 it will have a XML based meta data search and SQLite... So WOW.. Now I can make simple to install local apps that use PHP for logic, use SQLite as the storage system (MySQL if it's installed on their machine), XHTML/JS/CSS as my GUI API... I can build something that looks/feel/acts as a local application. THIS IS REALLY COOL!! It Brings all the client/server stuff to a local application level... And it would still be *very* portable to other environments. I think this could be a really great step forward for Rich Clients

Posted by: Kevin Ryan at July 1, 2004 5:11 PM

Indeed, one obvious dividing line among "things on the web" is between a site of web pages with some interaction, and "an application that happens to be delivered to/by a web browser". MS MapPoint (or mapquest, but it's not quite as application-like) is an example of the latter; Zope and other CMS techs are about the former. All Dashboard does is takes the application category and pushes it the rest of the way along - "gee, all these technologies have developed in an application-oriented direction, might as well try using them for Real Applications" - if anything, it's a "faster" approach to "the whole reason webkit is a component" - namely, to allow applications to be built, quickly, with it.

None of that has anything to do with ActiveX, which was all about delivering binary applications over the web [ie. "gee, our security holes aren't wide enough - this should take care of that".]

Posted by: Mark Eichin at July 1, 2004 5:51 PM

Todd-

Forgive me if this has been said -- I haven't read all the comments yet.

I do understand your point, but you seem to be confusing WebKit with Safari. Apple hasn't added these technologies to Safari -- they've added them to WebKit. WebKit is there for any application to take advantage of -- Safari is just one of many apps that do so (Help Browser and Dashboard are others).

The fact that Apple has added some non-standard APIs to WebKit does nothing to make WebKit (and thereby, Safari) any less standards-compliant. It's very much akin to mozilla having the -mozilla additional properties to CSS. Safari is still just as standards-compliant as it always was.

Apple is positioning WebKit as a development environment. That development environment allows one to use familiar scripting and media to create applications, or pieces of applications. WebKit is no longer just an HTML rendering engine. It's a rendering kit for all sorts of media -- some of which are standards-compliant, and others of which aren't.

Posted by: Jeff Croft at July 1, 2004 5:51 PM

Okay, now I've read all the comments and I see that I've said nothing new. Sorry for that.

But I was thinking...

Given that any app can use WebKit, what's to stop some enterprising developer from making another container for widgets? Say, for example, that I don't like the model, Exposé-like way of getting to my gadgets. I'd rather than just run in an app, or sit in some kind of a dock. Seems to me something like that would be very easy to create.

I'd say there's a possibility we'll see a whole host of available gadgets "containers", allowing gadgets to exist outside of dashboard.

Not sure I would want this myself, but it's a cool concept, nonetheless...

Posted by: Jeff Croft at July 1, 2004 5:59 PM

I was going to chime in and tell Todd not to fear, but it looks like everyone beat me to the punch. I think the Dashboard idea is great for OS X — and by "Dashboard idea" I mean using HTML+CSS+JS, technologies that many folks are intimately familiar with, and allowing them to use those same technologies to build mini-apps with a limited functionality set in mind. As such (that is, mini-apps), they have to tie into the OS somehow and there is no standard for that right now.

If anything, it can be thought of as throwing a GUI-builder on top of a Windows Script Host. The fact that most of the widgets will work in Safari is just an added bonus.

So don't fear Todd, this won't turn the web upside down. (A sort of footnote: it's often times things like this result in an eventual standard, but waiting around for a standards body to give come up with a platform-independant implementation just doesn't make sense. Also remember that this is WWDC and they are trying to help out those who develop applications for the Mac.)

Posted by: David S at July 1, 2004 6:22 PM

CSS is a thorn in my side right now. Trying to learn it but all these hacks to make it work across browsers are driving me nuts. It's been a slow build on my current freelance project, but it will eventually come along.

Posted by: Caleb at July 2, 2004 9:48 AM

I think that the open source plugin initiative in which Apple is participating will have a much larger effect on the web. I would consider any Dashboard-embedding negligible.

By the way, those interested in previewing Dashboard can download it now from the original developer whom Apple quietly ripped off.

Posted by: Christian at July 2, 2004 1:28 PM

Christian. Konfabulator ripped of Stradocks DesktopX... So..

Posted by: Christopher Anderton at July 4, 2004 8:04 AM

Yea, those damn standards just keep bitchin.. WHY can't everyone just use Firefox/Mozilla?!

Posted by: Michael at July 4, 2004 12:41 PM

First of all I have not taken the time to read previous comments, so I apologize for any redundancy.

I share your hate for all the things aformentioned, but your point about Dashboard is valid ONLY IF developers emply Dashboard widgets on websites. From what I have seen from Apple, Dashboard is not meant to be for web apps, but just another part of the OS's GUI. In other words, it appears to me that Apple does not intend Dashboard widgets to be used on the web, but to be used only on, well, the Dashboard. Makes sense, doesn't it? I am sure there is more to it than that, but these are my views.

~chris

Posted by: Chris Davies at July 11, 2004 2:09 PM

I noticed Safari 1.2 added XMLHTTP object support - which allows for dynamic posting and retrieval of data. I suspect this will be used heavily in the upcoming Tiger widgets; what better way to dynamically grab weather and stock data, etc.

Although apparently not an officially-sanctioned (eg. W3C-approved) standard, now all of the major heavyweights (IE, Mozilla, Safari) support XMLHTTP - which is pretty cool.

Posted by: Scott S. at July 17, 2004 7:59 PM

Hey all,
I just found Generic Viagra for $1.50 per dose
They had free delivery and online consultation and its as good as the name brand
that I tried, except it was over 70% cheaper. I love the internet! =)
I think the website was http://cutpricepills.com/catalog.php?planetx

Posted by: Click Here for Viagra page at July 20, 2004 6:43 PM

Posted by: Click Here for Viagra page at July 20, 2004 6:48 PM

Posted by: Click Here for Viagra page at July 20, 2004 6:53 PM

Posted by: Click Here for Viagra page at July 20, 2004 6:57 PM

Posted by: Click Here for Viagra page at July 20, 2004 7:02 PM

Posted by: Click Here for Viagra page at July 20, 2004 7:07 PM

Posted by: Click Here for Viagra page at July 20, 2004 7:12 PM

Posted by: Click Here for Viagra page at July 20, 2004 7:16 PM

Posted by: Click Here for Viagra page at July 20, 2004 7:21 PM

Posted by: Click Here for Viagra page at July 20, 2004 7:25 PM

Posted by: Click Here for Viagra page at July 20, 2004 7:30 PM

Posted by: Click Here for Viagra page at July 20, 2004 7:35 PM

Posted by: Click Here for Viagra page at July 20, 2004 7:40 PM

I heard that pillsamples.com is giving away free samples of Viagra. How does this
work?... don't you need a prescription for this? Maybe because its generic viagra or
something, but free samples are free samples, right?

Posted by: Free samples of Viagra at July 21, 2004 1:29 AM

Posted by: Free samples of Viagra at July 21, 2004 1:32 AM

Posted by: Free samples of Viagra at July 21, 2004 1:37 AM

Posted by: Free samples of Viagra at July 21, 2004 1:42 AM

Posted by: Free samples of Viagra at July 21, 2004 1:47 AM

Posted by: Free samples of Viagra at July 21, 2004 1:52 AM

Posted by: Free samples of Viagra at July 21, 2004 1:57 AM

Posted by: Free samples of Viagra at July 21, 2004 2:01 AM

Posted by: Free samples of Viagra at July 21, 2004 2:06 AM

Posted by: Free samples of Viagra at July 21, 2004 2:12 AM

Posted by: Free samples of Viagra at July 21, 2004 2:17 AM

Posted by: Free samples of Viagra at July 21, 2004 2:21 AM

Posted by: Free samples of Viagra at July 21, 2004 2:26 AM

Posted by: Free samples of Viagra at July 21, 2004 2:31 AM

Posted by: Free samples of Viagra at July 21, 2004 2:36 AM

Posted by: Free samples of Viagra at July 21, 2004 2:41 AM

Posted by: Free samples of Viagra at July 21, 2004 2:45 AM

Posted by: Free samples of Viagra at July 21, 2004 2:50 AM

Posted by: Free samples of Viagra at July 21, 2004 2:55 AM

Posted by: Free samples of Viagra at July 21, 2004 3:00 AM

Posted by: Free samples of Viagra at July 21, 2004 3:04 AM

Posted by: Free samples of Viagra at July 21, 2004 3:10 AM

Posted by: Free samples of Viagra at July 21, 2004 3:14 AM

Posted by: Free samples of Viagra at July 21, 2004 3:19 AM

Posted by: Free samples of Viagra at July 21, 2004 3:24 AM

Posted by: Free samples of Viagra at July 21, 2004 3:29 AM

Posted by: Free samples of Viagra at July 21, 2004 3:34 AM

Posted by: Free samples of Viagra at July 21, 2004 3:38 AM

Posted by: Free samples of Viagra at July 21, 2004 3:43 AM

Posted by: Free samples of Viagra at July 21, 2004 3:48 AM

Posted by: Free samples of Viagra at July 21, 2004 3:53 AM

Posted by: Free samples of Viagra at July 21, 2004 3:58 AM

Posted by: Free samples of Viagra at July 21, 2004 4:02 AM