What is a Rich Internet Application?

1844 Words4 Pages

Introduction

The purpose of this document will allow us to look into the WHAT, WHY & HOW of Rich Internet Applications

WHAT: describes the general definition of a Rich Internet Application (RIA) and view some examples of these Rich Internet Applications.

WHY: will take us through, why use Rich Internet Applications, the benefits and future developments.

HOW: will allow us to look at the Technologies behind the RIA.

WHAT is a Rich Internet Application?

The term Rich Internet Applications refers to web applications that have features and function like a desktop application, it means that Rich Internet Applications are a cross between web applications and traditional desktop applications which allows some of the essential work to be shared amongst the Web Client and Application server.

Rich internet applications increase the level interaction on a website and therefore provide a richer online experience for the user. It adds flexibility to web pages making them interactive and responsive and on the whole more able to draw the attention/attraction of the user.

The aim of the Rich Internet Application is to work more fluidly, applications more responsive to user input, allow direct user content change without having to request a new page after each and every user action and therefore resemble / feel more like a desktop application to the User.

Wikipedia are quoted to define a Rich Internet application as “Rich Internet applications (RIAs) are web applications that have most of the characteristics of desktop applications, typically delivered either by way of a standards based web browser, via a browser plug-in, or independently via sandboxes or virtual machines.”

URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Internet_...

... middle of paper ...

...is allows partial page updates and is a Scripted based RIA approach. Updates of individual pieces of a web site/data from the server (known as asynchronous retrieval) can be requested in the background, thus not causing an issue for performance, behaviour or the display of the exisiting page allowing a more responsive GUI (Graphical User Interface). This allows the user to continue interacting with the web page, whilst the server processes any requests. The technologies that make up Ajax are XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, the DOM, XML, and the XMLHttpRequest object. Data is retrieved using a XMLHttpRequest object or if the browser does not support this option, using Remote Scripting. Ajax calls use the programming language Javascript.

Ajax is supported by all modern browsers without additional plug-ins. However it does have issues if you have disabled client-side scripts.

More about What is a Rich Internet Application?

Open Document