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Whither security?
While all this sounds great, I can't help but think about the potentially dangerous issue of security, what with all these scriptable plugins and HTML extensions and what-not. I mean, one doesn't have to look very hard to find just how nasty things can get when a certain browser allows all sorts of unchecked interaction between the wilds of the Web and users' systems. And while I can't speak to how the new plugin spec is being defined with regards to security, it doesn't seem to be an issue for Dashboard Widgets, which, by design, are run locally. David Hyatt writes on July 2:
(1) The native plugin code must be owned by root. This means that in order for a Dashboard widget that contains one of these special types of plugins to execute that code, you have to enter a root account password (to chown the plugin code). This plugin code cannot execute, therefore, without the widget being "blessed" just as an application that you might install on your system must be.
(2) This plugin will not be present in Safari or other WebKit applications, and is only accessible from Dashboard.
So while I'll continue to rightfully fret about security, at least between now and when Tiger ships I'll trust that security is already (and will continue to be) taken seriously by Apple until they give me reason to think otherwise.
Beyond the Widget
So now that I've put forth some facts as reported by our dear Mr. Hyatt (and that only takes us through July 7, so who knows what's popped up since then), it's time for more rampant speculation. As I said, I'm not buying that all this stuff is coming together solely for the benefit of writing Widgets for Dashboard. Or, let me put it another way: there's so much going on here that it'd be a damn shame if it could only be put to use in Dashboard. I'd love to see all this, which I'll refer to from here on out as the Dashboard framework, step into the shoes that AppleScript Studio currently fills, in that it would provide a pretty rapid application development environment that's even more developer-friendly than AppleScript. But it doesn't have to stop there. As a designer with just enough knowledge of scripting languages such as Lingo, JavaScript and ActionScript to be dangerous, I would love to be able to use the Dashboard framework to serve as a container for multimedia content, effectively providing the development environment to aggregate whatever technology fits the bill. A dash of Shockwave here, a snippet of QuickTime there, and it's all tied together by underlying Web standards. And Apple doesn't have to even produce a specialized piece of software to create this stuff in a decent text editor and Photoshop should be all that's required. However, with Apple's recent track record for quality software, an Apple-branded multimedia development program (Apple Media Tool 2005, anyone?) that has the Dashboard framework under the hood would definitely be something I'd want to pick up.
However, for all the cool uses of the Dashboard framework, especially from a multimedia point of view, it doesn't do a lot of us a whole lot of good unless there's a way to deploy content over to the Dark Side (a.k.a. Windows). Writing a Mac OS X-only app with Dashboard technology is fine and good and all if you're doing "real" application development, but what about those of us who might be looking to use the Dashboard framework to write and deploy rich media stuff, akin to what's been done in Director and Flash (for example) to this point? I mean, for designers, the Dashboard framework could be a huge boon for multimedia development, because it builds upon stuff that designers either already know or is easy enough for designer-types to pick up. Cross-platform deployment is crucial for this user segment, and without at least a Windows runtime (if not a development environment), there's a big missed opportunity. So, there would necessarily have to be some version of WebKit for Windows for this to work, and I'm not sure if that's in the cards. David Hyatt himself put the rumor to rest that the iTunes Music store doesn't use WebKit at all, so there goes the false hope that WebKit has already been deployed to all those Windows iTunes users. Anyway, this is just a fly in the ointment that is my grand (or not-so-grand, as the case may be) vision of what the Dashboard framework could be, so unless Safari for Windows suddenly shows up out of the Cupertino ether, it's a wait-and-see proposition. And, as far as Apple is concerned, that's the only way for us mere end users to operate.
At any rate, I'll continue to keep my eye on Surfin' Safari, not only because I've come to enjoy David's insight and candor, but because it's also a rare look into at least a little of what's going on inside Apple. Regardless, it's still a while before Tiger ships, and there are so many places I could be wrong about where Dashboard might be headed that I'd be shocked if I were actually on to something here. But it never hurts to dream, and whether or not I end up being right about this particular one, it's a safe bet that whatever ends up coming out the other side should be food for thought for a lot of us.
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