User Interface Development

User Interface is a junction point between a user and a computer program whereby user can communicate with a program. UI can be a command-driven interface or a menu-driven interface. It's an important part of any program as it helps to improve user's visibility and interactivity. Today, there are various technologies available in the market to create elegant and interactive screens for users but below mentioned technologies is something that brings life into web applications.

Desktop-based applications have been superior against web-based applications in terms of richness, responsiveness and interactivity. Even extreme efforts of web professionals couldn't satisfy their clients as per needs. But now, it's not the same case. AJAX has been able to drive out the limitations of web and creating stunning web applications (Rich Internet Applications), which seems to be an imagination earlier on

Latest User Interface Development Using AJAX

Ajax isn't a technology. It's really several technologies, each flourishing in its own right, coming together in powerful new ways. Ajax incorporates:

• standards-based presentation using XHTML and CSS;
• dynamic display and interaction using the Document Object Model;
• data interchange and manipulation using XML and XSLT;
• asynchronous data retrieval using XMLHttpRequest;
• and JavaScript binding everything together.

AJAX is also a key component of Web 2.0 applications such as Flickr, now part of Yahoo!, 37signals' applications basecamp and backpack, as well as other Google applications such as Gmail and Orkut. We're entering an unprecedented period of user interface innovation, as web developers are finally able to build web applications as rich as local PC-based applications.

Web-based applications and desktops

The richer user-experience afforded by Ajax has prompted the development of web-sites that shows like personal computer applications, such as word processing, the spreadsheet, and slide-show presentation.

Several browser-based "operating systems" or "online desktops" have also appeared. They essentially function as application platforms, not as operating systems. These services mimic the user experience of desktop operating-systems, offering features and applications similar to a PC environment. They have as their distinguishing characteristic the ability to run within any modern browser.

Rich Internet applications

Recently, rich-Internet application techniques such as Ajax, Adobe Flash, Flex and OpenLaszlo have evolved that can improve the user-experience in browser-based applications. These technologies allow a web-page to request an update for some part of its content, and to alter that part in the browser, without needing to refresh the whole page at the same time.

Server-side software

The functionality of Web 2.0 s builds on the existing Web server architecture, but puts much greater emphasis on back-end software. Syndication differs only nominally from the methods of publishing using dynamic content management, but web services typically require much more robust database and workflow support, and become very similar to the traditional intranet functionality of an application server. Vendor approaches to date fall under either a universal server approach, which bundles most of the necessary functionality in a single server platform, or a web-server plugin approach, which uses standard publishing tools enhanced with API interfaces and other tools.

Client-side software

The extra functionality provided by Web 2.0 depends on the ability of users to work with the data stored on servers. This can come about through forms in an HTML page, through a scripting language such as Javascript, or through Flash or Java. These methods all make use of the client computer to reduce the server workloads.

RSS

Syndication of site content is considered a Web 2.0 feature, involving standardized protocols which permit end-users to make use of a site's data in another context, ranging from another web-site, to a browser plugin, or to a separate desktop application. Protocols which permit syndication include RSS (Really Simple Syndication - also known as "web syndication"), RDF (as in RSS 1.1), and Atom, all of them XML-based formats. Specialized protocols such as FOAF and XFN (both for social networking) extend the functionality of sites or permit end-users to interact without centralized web-sites. (See microformats for more specialized data formats.)

Web protocols

Web communication protocols provide a key element of the Web 2.0 infrastructure. Major protocols include REST and SOAP.

• REST (Representational State Transfer) indicates a way to access and manipulate data on a server using the HTTP verbs GET, POST, PUT, and DELETE
• SOAP involves POSTing XML messages and requests to a server that may contain quite complex, but pre-defined, instructions for the server to follow

In both cases, an API defines access to the service. Often servers use proprietary APIs, but standard web-service APIs (for example, for posting to a blog) have also come into wide use. Most (but not all) communications with web services involve some form of XML (eXtensible Markup Language).