Here's a little dilemma I'm facing:
Should WebJCS be accessible through a web browser like any other web-app/webpage?
Or should it be something you install on your computer, that will have direct access to your local J2L/J2T files?
The former would mean it will work
as it does today, it runs on a small self-contained webserver and is accessible over the web using a web browser (Chrome/Firefox supported).
The latter, more native approach, would mean better offline support. Only one program to keep track of, no extra webserver. I could implement proper Save/Save as functionality and it will be a cross-platform program (packaged in an .exe, if possible).
It will be based on
node-webkit. This in turn would increase the size of WebJCS to about 50-70 MB, because of all the webkit dependencies. It will still be "WebJCS", because it's built with the web technologies (HTML5, node.js, CSS3..)
I have also heard that some are afraid to use Chrome/Chromium only to use WebJCS, because they are afraid of Google. This would also solve that issue.
Here's a screenshot of how the "native" WebJCS could look like:
The current development (latest) code for WebJCS 2.0 uses the classic webserver method:
https://github.com/daniel-j/webjcs/tree/dev
Live demo:
http://djazz.mine.nu:8011/
It looks like this atm:
New features that I'd like to see in WebJCS v2.0:
- WebGL rendering (if supported)
- Improved speed/performance
- Cleaner code, easier to extend/modify
- Improved collaboration
- To be continued...
I'm also pretty busy at the moment with studies/college, so I don't have as much time to work on this project as I would like to. The current WebJCS release (v1.3.3) is quite sluggish/slow, because it isn't optimized for speed.
I am working on this all by myself. Any help would be highly appreciated.
What do you think? What would you use (native/web)?
Any new features that you would like to see in v2.0?