Hans Leidekker wrote:
different apps you want to serve. The user uses IE to navigate to that page. When clicking, the App comes up as a window in his/her machine. First time visit Installs a 12M Cygwin/X server.
I really like the concept but your approach seems to limit publishing of apps to Windows boxes. Theoretically you could run the OCX (Internet Explorer) on Wine and the Cygwin/X as well but not practically though, if only from a performance point of view.
It would be more interesting if Mac/Linux/Unix users could use their browser of choice and their native X server, which is usually already installed on those platforms. How exactly is this approach dependent on the use of an OCX?
-Hans
I really like the idea invoking a X-session from your browser. Some time ago working on some complex php/dhtml web site administration scripts, I had the feeling programming a real app instead of a web app would be much easier. I never got concrete, but made some ideas. My approach was the following: Server side: - defining a mime-type application/x11-control (or something similar) - a x control file, with all the information to connect to the X-client over ssh (app-name, host, ports, [ssh username,password], ...). (say tst.x11) - a link to the tst.x11 file in the webpage. - the app itself - a unix user (anonymous or autorized) Client side: - A x invoking script - Map application/x11-control type to the x-script
When you click on the link, your x-script gets invoked with the tst.x11 files, which then connects to the x-client. You could also (optionally) specify an anonymous user/password setting for the ssh tunnel.
This approach would be completly platform independant. But it would require the web-client to install the x-script and map the mime-type (well the x-script installation could do that). I googled a little around, but found nothing similiar, although the approach seems to me pretty obvious.
This may be a little off-topic, but the idea combining http and x is really fascinating.
Markus