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by tcdent 3936 days ago
I have no idea how it's actually implemented, but it's quite likely TVML is powered by HTML (and WebKit).

Rather than expecting developers to use an open-spec-compliant generic toolkit, they've just built modules on top of it to both make development easier and more importantly maintain a consistent UX.

You could just have pre-defined CSS classes and do much of the same thing, but it will not be as elegant nor as controlled. Taking over the HTML and JS interpreters just allows them greater control while respecting the role each component plays (markup, interactivity, styling, etc).
1 comments
wvenable 3936 days ago
Implementing this with WebKit would be massive overkill; I'd say it's quite unlikely it's implemented with it.
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tcdent 3936 days ago
If you implemented a web-like runtime from the ground up, you're saying you would write it from scratch?

The runtime has JavaScript support, it does not have a brand new interpreter.

The runtime has CSS support, it does not have a brand new interpreter.

The runtime has HTML/XML syntax. Why would they write a brand new interpreter?

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wvenable 3936 days ago
Because the XML syntax maps directly onto UI components; introducing an HTML canvas is vastly more complicated than that.

Mappping XML to a small subset of UI objects is so simple you don't really need to pull in an entire browser runtime for it.

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