Browser as desktop ui

Tuesday 30 December 2003 — This is exactly 21 years old. Be careful.

Bruce Eckel has a detailed write-up about building a UI using a local webserver in Python. It’s a good explanation of the technique, and provides a complete example. I didn’t have the csv module, so I just commented out the code that dealt with CSV files, and the sample worked fine after that.

It can be daunting learning or even choosing a GUI framework, and if the app you need to build lends itself to the relatively poor interaction available in a browser, this kind of local web app can be a good way to go. I’m glad to see the technique wrapped up in a nice present like this.

Comments

[gravatar]
Hoang Do 6:45 PM on 30 Dec 2003
A nice read from Bruce. I tried to respond to his article but there was no article comment mechanism at his site. In any case, I am perplexed by his solution. Bruce needed a database. He did mention FileMaker. He ended up writing a home-grown database, HHTP server, and the HTML for the UI.

Wouldn't using Microsoft Access (along with its Forms Wizards) be simpler? A couple of articles before his current one mentioned "don't reinvent the wheel".

It was just a stupid observation from me. Maybe his motivation was different.

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