Since the early days of HTML, people have designed their web sites such that pages within a certain domain name or directory shared common features. For instance, every page you read of this weblog has the title “Burning Chrome” at the top of the page
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With CGI scripts, PHP, ASP, etc., dynamic effects became possible. Many pages became a combination of static and dynamic, generated content. This weblog’s individual entries are generated dynamically every time I update the database with a new entry. Also, when I approve a comment, it is readable through the URI of the page.
None of this, of course, is new.
However, when you think about it, a lot of bandwidth goes to downloading the static content along with the dynamic content. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could have that static content cached? Sure, Mozilla’s cache will store images and other complete objects… but when an HTML page changes (static + dynamic), the cached page gets thrown away, and a new complete set of static + dynamic markup is downloaded for that page.
Well, with a chrome application, it would be possible to “install” static content and query the server for the dynamic content…
Why not? If you make an XPI of your site’s static content, and your site generates X(HT)ML anyway, then the client Mozilla-based browser could just HTTP GET a special XML document with just the dynamic content. A little rearranging of source markup, an iframe, and your site appears to the user.
I haven’t started anything more than the concept on this, but if it turns out to be feasible (and if you think it’s a good idea), I might just go ahead and ask for shortsite.mozdev.org to implement this.
At the very least, it could significantly cut down on the bandwidth of a host server. I would probably use shortsite on itself, just to demonstrate it.
UPDATE: biesi is right in his comment. XSLT is probably a better way to go than manually reconstructing the page from a chrome app. (I chose the name of this article as a pun, and I’m not afraid to toss a good idea, or a bad one, in favor of a better one.)
Still, the idea of using chrome to cache static content is appealing. Maybe the XSLT stylesheet itself is static…
random thought… doesn’t xslt make this possible? use a small xml file describing your content, transform that with an unchanging XSLT to the full content.
(From Alex: Hm, good point. How can we help the developer develop the XSLT in the first place? Would storing the static files, such as the XSLT stylesheet in chrome, still cut down on bandwidth in a significant way?)
http://disruptive-innovations.com/zoo/20040830/HTMLoverlays.html
(From Alex: Yes, I know about that, too. But that’s a backwards situation in this scenario, where the content from the overlay is cached. If you try to do the uncached behavior by overlay, you still end up loading the whole page, I think.)
Some people incorporated frames into their design for this reason. It saved bandwidth in the process. Since those portions of the page never reloaded.
People hated the damn frame concept though. Myself included.
(From Alex: My answer to that concern would be including a static content timestamp in whatever XML file carries the dynamic content and comparing that against a timestamp in the installed static content. If the dynamic one differs, then we simply throw out the entire thing, get the full page, and cry for help to the user to get a new package or notify the server’s owner.
Or, the client could send that timestamp with its request, and if it receives an application/xhtml+xml content-type in response, then it dumps any cached content and cries for help as described above.)
I have thought about similar things. Only concern I would have is security. With an installed xpi, does it not have local access? Or is there a way to sandbox an installed xpi?
(From Alex: Ooh. I have no idea.)
Your XSLT would be static, so that solves the cache problem.
I really like the idea of serving just the dynamic content as a simple XHTML document and using a client-side XSLT to add the common, static content.
What would be great, is a specific framework for this purpose, as opposed to XPI. Installing a new XPI for every site requires you to whitelist the site, then install it – with universal privledges no less!
Maybe a new type of XPI that only has remote privledges..
This is a really good idea.. Webpages load like local apps. Moz also has a preload feature, so you could get it to preload all the remote templates when the front page is loaded.
Harddrive space is a lot cheaper than bandwidth – and the users get a more interactive application.
If i get time next week I’ll quickly code something up. I guess they should be stored in the user profile.
And there needs to be some sort of preference window that lets you manage/delete these webextensions.
(From Alex: Well, wait a sec. file:/// protocols don’t have privileges. Files in chrome do, but not files you access through the operating system.)
Anyone got a link to a page listing what privledges file:// URIs have?
I’m pretty sure it’s not exactly the same as remote files…
Isn’t that almost the definition of a rich client app?
(From Alex: I don’t think so. You still need some server-side stuff, and HTML is really not intended as a UI language!)