That's what Laszlo objects are all about!.
Apparently, Apple's new Dashboard thingummies are HTML/CSS/Javascript pages (ie WebKit) in little floaty windows, perfect for tiny Flash/SVG apps and web-updated displays.
But how do you control iTunes from one of those — open up internal application controls to the internet?
And Marc Canter replied:
Without being able to “API Into” a system, these little HTML pages are nothing more than just – well HTML pages.
But just imagine if we had open APIs to inter-connect modules together!
We spend most of our web time in the browser, and yet the browser is not an object on the web. Is it possible to change that, or will there always be a line that the web can't cross? How is an application that handles web objects different from a web object? Why can't my web app generate M3U files to control your client app to render M3U files?
This is the tragedy of Flash: Flash objects are on the web, but not the Flash player, so Flash has never become a building block.
Marc enthusiastically agrees!
Exactly – and that's where the Laszlo objects come in. It's an XML language specifically designed to inter-connect to modular back-end processes. Laszlo is the missing link for front-end modularity.
We're using it on 1UP.com. [Marc's Voice]