RESPONSIVE INTERACTION FOR A LARGE WEB APPLICATION - THE METEOR-SHOWER ARCHITECTURE IN THE WEBWRITER-II-EDITOR

Traditional server-based web applications allow access to server-hoste d resources, but often exhibit poor responsiveness due to server load and network delays. Client-side web applications, on the other hand, p rovide excellent interactivity at the expense of limited access to ser ver resources. The WebWriter II Editor, a direct manipulation HTML edi tor that runs in a web browser, uses both sec-ver-side and client-side processing in order to achieve the advantages of both. In particular, this editor downloads the document data structure to the browser and performs all operations locally. The user interface is based on HTML f rames and includes individual frames for previewing the document and d isplaying general and specific control panels. All editing is done by JavaScript code residing in roughly twenty HTML pages that are downloa ded into these frames as needed. Such a client - server architecture, based on frames, client-side data structures, and multiple JavaScript- enhanced HTML pages appears promising for a wide variety of applicatio ns. This paper describes this architecture, the Meteor Shower Applicat ion Architecture, and its use in the WebWriter II Editor. (C) 1997 Pub lished by Elsevier Science B.V.