Web Standards coming to a desktop near you.

Web Standards like JavaScript, DOM, HTML, CSS, XML are starting to become more common place in desktop applications. Mozilla already uses XML to define its GUI using their XUL markup language and then use JavaScript as the glue. Apple has also previewed their new Dashboard capability that will allow developers to create widgets that are quickly displayed or hidden by entering a hotkey shortcut. These new capabilities are becoming more and more prolific and signifies a paradigm shift of using these standards in desktop-based application development rather than relegating their use in web based applications using standard client-server architectural designs.

The reason that these standards are becoming more prolific for desktop applications is because of their flexibility, ease of use and platform independence. As more and more applications are becoming network enabled it is a logical step for these web-based applications to be run directly on the desktop. These standards are also very powerful and could be used to develop applications that run both as web-based applications accessed by a standard Internet browser or as fully fledged desktop applications.

The common uses for these standards include:
- Use of XML to define and build GUI components
- Using javascript and other scripting languages as the runtime glue to build the application
- providing lightweight user interfaces that provide a quick access to information that can also be skinned so that users can select the overall look and feel of their application.

I foresee that over the next couple of years you will see a greater number of these localised web applications appearing that support and use web-based standards to provide standalone or network centric applications.