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This is not a question about writing a web-app Vs a desktop app. It's a question about allowing a bespoke application to run in a browser though use of a custom plugin, effectively using the browser just as your render-window.

QuakeLive does this - it's a C++ application with some extra code to run through a browser. Unity3D and Torque game engines also provide deployment options to do the same thing.

Personally, I'm a bit dubious about the usefulness of such a system. But I'd welcome other opinions on the reasons why this might or might not be a good idea.

Not sure if there's a proper term for this, please edit my tags if there is!

Mr. Boy
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    Good question. Another plugin in the same category is Google's [Native Client](http://code.google.com/p/nativeclient-sdk/), which is meant to run x86 code through a browser. – Matthew Flaschen Nov 06 '10 at 19:47
  • I think this is a bit vague... Can't you tell us what application you have in mind? –  Nov 06 '10 at 19:50
  • @jdv: something involving real-time rendering. But it's a general question. If the app looks the same in desktop/browser, why make a browser version. – Mr. Boy Nov 06 '10 at 19:55
  • @Matthew: is Google's thing a direct competitor to ActiveX and FF plugins, which let you write an _entire app_ and then wrap it as a browser plugin? – Mr. Boy Nov 06 '10 at 19:56
  • @John, the idea of Native Client (NaCl) is that every application uses the same plugin (just like e.g. every applet uses the Java plugin), and it maintains security. And it is meant to let you write complex applications. – Matthew Flaschen Nov 06 '10 at 20:00
  • @John Unlike writing your own ActiveX or FF plugin Goole Native Client offers sandboxing to safely run untrusted code. Adobe Alchemy is a similar technology that compiles your C++ code to Actionscript bycotes instead of providing a restricted x86 execution environment. – Alex Jasmin Nov 06 '10 at 20:03
  • Ah, native-client is not really comparable then. This question is really about embedding an _existing_ app as a plugin, it's written in C++ originally for a reason (dependencies, etc) – Mr. Boy Nov 06 '10 at 21:23

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It depends on the application. My background is in medical imaging, but what I have to say would apply to many information system clients:

Pros:

  • it gets easier to build REST-based integrations between applications. This type of integrations can be used by admins to build integrated portals. (So case ID's from one application can be used to launch another with the right context etc).
  • ideally, users can install your application themselves, on-demand (depends on context if this is really possible)
  • Deployment of new versions gets easier. Usually the hosting technology has deployment built-in. In client server environments, this can save a lot of work for the IT department.
  • You can have a single start URL for PC's and thin web clients (like phones). This makes it easy for users to find your application.
  • You can centralize configuration for clients. For standalone clients, you could of course centralize configuration somehow, but if you app is web based, you always know for sure there is a server, so you can always use it.
  • you can offload work that's ineficcient to do locally to the server. (reduce # of roundtrips between client/server).

Cons:

  • Each browser vendor has its own model of wrapping the native code. There are not too many, but it's definetly extra work.
  • Your app has to "play nice" with the hosting application. Like when the user closes the browser window, the browser may have prescribed when and how you can ask the user to save.
  • updates to browsers can break your plugin.
  • system admins may have restricted installation of plugins, disallowing users to install your application on demand (this happens a lot for activex).
  • your users may not like that extra code is injected into the browser (there is a lot of malware around that does this)
  • you don't have the opportunity to update prerequisites before installation
  • I don't believe really that it's just wrapping existing code in a plugin framework.
  • Your application won't work anymore when the server is down...
  • nice write-up. Presumably you can do standard JS stuff to prevent a tab closing without confirmation, hooking this to your native code? Also, do this kind of plugins get to access local storage e.g for writing logs, etc? – Mr. Boy Nov 06 '10 at 22:03
  • I looked at your site - do you support browser deployment of these .net based products and is it of great use? btw, are you the owner of that company - I wanted to ask more about it? – Mr. Boy Nov 06 '10 at 22:09
  • No, but i'm the architect. 3mensio does have web solutions but we don't do native code client side. The story was based on experience in a previous job. There I worked mostly with ActiveX, but the most of the issues apply to web-based in general. You can mail me for more questions: jan dot devaan at 3mensio dot com. –  Nov 07 '10 at 16:08