IBM has teamed up with Laszlo Systems, developer of the OpenLaszlo platform and provider of rich Internet applications (RIAs) and services, to propose the "IDE for Laszlo" integrated development environment (IDE) project at Eclipse. This joint initiative is designed to further accelerate the development and deployment of OpenLaszlo applications and to support the Eclipse Foundation, the open source community committed to the implementation of a universal development platform.
The OpenLaszlo platform is an open source, XML-native platform for developing RIAs that run in any modern Web browser. Since Laszlo Systems announced its open source status last October, OpenLaszlo has been downloaded more than 60,000 times and is being deployed in applications serving millions of users. IBM intends to contribute the "IDE for Laszlo," which will allow developers to build RIAs, more quickly and easily, using Eclipse. IBM launched the "IDE for Laszlo" last year on alphaWorks, its emerging technology Web site. Since then, the "IDE for Laszlo" has been downloaded more than 13,000 times.
In a related announcement, IBM is also making "Faces for Laszlo" available for download on alphaWorks. The software allows developers to use OpenLaszlo to create rich Internet applications in portals and J2EE environments.
"Rich Internet Applications can substantially advance the Web user experience by enabling greater functionality in browser-based
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Web applications," said David Boloker, Chief Technology Officer of Emerging Internet Technologies, IBM Software Group. "By contributing the Eclipse IDE for Laszlo and making Faces for Laszlo available on alphaWorks, IBM aims to give developers an easy-to-use tool to create these applications in less time, using skills they already have. This is also aimed at accelerating the uptake of RIAs in the open source community."
The "IDE for Laszlo" currently available at IBM alphaWorks allows developers to create, edit, debug, test, and preview applications, based on the LZX declarative mark-up language. The IDE project will also make available a rich editing environment with features including XML- and script-based content assistance, XML syntax highlighting and XML code formatting. It will include extensions that will enable other software vendors to provide value-added functionality such as the ability to add visual components and component libraries, custom property editors for runtime visual components, and listeners for runtime events and logging operations.