Summary Regarding to Java / Javascript Application

Wed Nov 27 21:44:07 EST 1996

Dear Colleagues,

I like to send my great THANKS to those who response to my request
regarding to Java and Javascript. However quite some readers also showed
their interest on this issue. Therefore I will post a compendium of all
the responses I received re: Java / Javascript application. 

Wendy Wu
Shiffman Medical Library
wendywu at med.wayne.edu

********************************************************************
Sites you might like to take a look:

http://www.lclark.edu/~refdesk/
http://www.uwindsor.ca/library/leddy/welcome.html
http://janus.lamf.uwindsor.ca/units/library/zjava.html
http://www.uwindsor.ca/library/leddy/talks/java.html
http://www.arachnoid.com/
http://archive.lis.unt.edu/~mew0002/
Webmaster WWW Archive of Conference Proceedings
http://archive.lis.unt.edu/
http://www.roir.com/ul/faults.htm.

************************************************************************
A Compendium of Messages: 

Subject: 
        Java / Javascript application -Reply
  Date: 
        Thu, 07 Nov 1996 09:02:38 -0800
  From: 
        Anna Beauchamp <Beauchamp at wpo.sosc.osshe.edu>
    To: 
        wendywu at med.wayne.edu

Hi Wendy,

     Take a look at this site, best viewed through MSIE:

http://www.arachnoid.com

Cheers,
Anna Beauchamp
SOSC Library
Ashland OR  97520
beauchamp at wpo.sosc.osshe.edu

_________________________________________________________________________

Subject: 
        Re: Java / Javascript application
  Date: 
        Thu, 7 Nov 1996 11:38:42 -0500 (EST)
  From: 
        arhyno at server.uwindsor.ca (Rhyno Art)
    To: 
        wendywu at med.wayne.edu

Hi Wendy:

I don't know if either of these will be useful to you but I was asked to 
give a presentation on Java for the Canadian Library Association in June
and put together two applets for the session. The first is on our Home
Page:

http://www.uwindsor.ca/library/leddy/welcome.html

and is a simple "billboard" with information about our Home Page. It is
close to being "eye candy" but tries to have some utility for the
viewer.

The other is something called Zjava, which is a Z39.50/MOO that I had
been
working on for trying to use a MOO approach to Bibliographic
Instruction.
We are in the middle of putting in a new system, so I had to put it to
one
side, but you can see what it is about at:

http://janus.lamf.uwindsor.ca/units/library/zjava.html

I think that Java is an interesting technology and it has lots of
promise,
but as you have suggested, it can be a little too "cute" for its own
good.
Because of the sometimes hugh downloading time for any applet that does
more than a simple animation, I think you will see distributed
middleware
become the norm for more complex applications, with Java on the front
end
and something using CORBA or some other standard in the middle, sort of
like intelligent terminals all over again.

My presentation, which already looks dated, is at:

http://www.uwindsor.ca/library/leddy/talks/java.html

I tried to show a bit of how Java could be useful for libraries but
there
is much more work that could be done in this area.

Good luck,

art
---
Art Rhyno, Systems Librarian
Leddy Library, University of Windsor
Internet: arhyno at server.uwindsor.ca
Tel: (519) 253-4232, EXT. 3163
FAX: (519) 973-7076
WWW: <http://www.uwindsor.ca/library/leddy/people/art.html>
_________________________________________________________________________

Subject: 
        Re: Java / Javascript application
  Date: 
        Thu, 7 Nov 1996 08:39:48 -0500
  From: 
        "Thomas Dowling" <tdowling at OHIOLINK.edu>
    To: 
        <wendywu at med.WAYNE.edu>

Wendy--

I hope you'll summarize any responses you get for the list.  I'd also
like
to see if people are actually doing anything useful, now, with either
Java
or Javascript.

BTW, I noted in a message from Walt Crawford that the web interface to
RLG
Eureka databases will be built with Javascript.

Thomas Dowling
tdowling at ohiolink.edu
Ohio Library and Information Network

_________________________________________________________________________

Subject: 
        Re: Java / Javascript application
  Date: 
        Wed, 6 Nov 1996 15:05:28 -0800 (PST)
  From: 
        Linda Absher <absher at lclark.edu>
    To: 
        Wendy Wu <wendywu at med.wayne.edu>

Don't know if this fits your criteria, but we use a javascript for our 
library home page to further explain options for our links.  Our URL is 

                http://www.lclark.edu/~refdesk/

When a user moves the mouse over the links, the scroll bar at the bottom 
displays a brief explanation of each link.

Linda Absher

_________________________________________________________________________

Subject: 
            Re: Java / Javascript application
       Date: 
            Thu, 7 Nov 1996 16:15:50 CST6CDT
       From: 
            "Mark Wilcox" <WILCOX at lis.unt.edu>
Organization: 
            University of North Texas
         To: 
            wendywu at med.wayne.edu

I use Javascript to create navigation buttons and I also plan to 
implement a "document viewer" window (with any luck this weekend).

The site I'm a webmaster for archives conference papers and I use 
frames to provide navigation (adding buttons to a few hundred HTML 
documents just didn't seem practical), but I know frames eat up real 
estate. but I can use javascript to open up a full window for papers 
to be read.

Mark

wilcox at lis.unt.edu

http://archive.lis.unt.edu/~mew0002/
Webmaster WWW Archive of Conference Proceedings
http://archive.lis.unt.edu/

_________________________________________________________________________

Subject: 
            Re: Java / Javascript application
       Date: 
            Fri, 08 Nov 1996 14:32:49 GMT
       From: 
            slger at netropolis.net (Susan Gerhart)
Organization: 
            Research Outlet and Integration
         To: 
            wendywu at med.wayne.edu
 References: 
            1

Wendy,  I'm very interested in this topic and would appreciate seeing
your
summary. I too have been looking for CONTENT related uses of
Java/Javascript.

I know of  one Java application (not an applet) in a product. Echosource
from
Iconovex www.iconovex.com is a meta-searcher hooked to their natural
language
processing engine. It runs multiple threads into different search
engines,
downloads the pages, and indexes them by "concepts" and "summaries".

 I have an example that isn' released yet so we can't put out a public
pointer
but you can check it out at http://www.roir.com/ul/faults.htm. It's all
Javascript, prototyping a fault-tree (risk) analyzer. You "probe" the
fault tree
and see the system components with dependencies at the probe point.
System and
data descriptions are synchronized between 2 frames to focus on the
relevant,
related data tables. There's a general architecture for this pattern of
hypertext that I'm looking at developing further in both Javascript and
VBScript, with a front end to translate system descriptions into browser
scripts. Netscape 3.0 frequently crashes after  the window swapping that
occurs,
so I don't have too much confidence in Javascript or this may just be a
NN bug.

I'd be interested in helping compile other examples of significant
Javascript/VBScript applications and summarizing them.

Susan Gerhart