Echo Web Framework

I finally took the plunge and picked up an iPhone a few days ago. While I was looking around for neat things that might be possible to do with it using Echo3, I ran into this page. It discusses the use of RFC 2397 (the "data" URL scheme) to embed images and even entire JavaScript/HTML applications into URLs. When you combine this with the fact that the iPhone now supports bookmarking web URLs and adding them to its "home screen", we have everything we need to create client-side Echo3 applications in JavaScript and package them up for offline iPhone use. That is, it's possible to create real Echo3 apps that can run even when the phone is out of network range or in "airplane mode".

There was one caveat: encoding URLs and applications using RFC 2397 is a horribly tedious process. My solution has been to throw together a proof-of-concept software development kit to take the pain out of it. You put in your JavaScript application and any other JS libraries you need, and out pops a ready-to-run offline Echo app for the iPhone. It can be downloaded from

Good morning all,

The Echo project has now officially moved to its new home at echo.nextapp.com. All open-source material from http://www.nextapp.com has been moved here. Commercial products, i.e., EchoStudio, and corporate information remain on the old site.

The new site is markedly easier to maintain and update than the previous item. Changes can be made in place very quickly--if you catch it at the right time, for example, you may see documentation actually being written. The overall mood here is intended to be less formal than on the old site. For example, you're free to post comments to articles such as this one.

Hello all,

This site is the new home of the Echo web framework. NextApp.com will continue on as the corporate site for NextApp, but all Echo content will be moved here. This site is being built using Drupal, an open-source content management platform. It is substantially easier to develop and manipulate content here than attempting to build nextapp.com manually with HTML code. This site additionally opens up new features such as the ability to create blogs such as this one.

I'd greatly appreciate any feedback about the new site and any suggestions to improve it. At this time though the site is under heavy development. Please continue to check the Echo resources at nextapp.com when you find content to be missing here.

Best
--Tod

Originally posted @ http://echotwo.blogspot.com/2006/05/comparing-google-web-toolkit-to-echo2.html

The Google Web Toolkit (GWT) is being compared to Echo2 quite frequently. Some of these comparisons have been fairly accurate, while others contain bits of misinformation. This article, written by the lead developer of Echo2, discusses the similarities and differences between these two frameworks.

Originally posted @ http://echotwo.blogspot.com/2005/08/ie7-beta-1.html

Well, I've finally had a brief opportunity to take a look at the latest browser from Microsoft: IE7 Beta 1. The good news is that it works just fine with Echo2, and that they've added support for rendering alpha channels in PNG images. Echo2 thus no longer needs to use IE's proprietary "image filter" capability to achieve this effect in IE7 as was required with IE6.

Originally posted @ http://echotwo.blogspot.com/2005/06/more-fun-with-browser-quirks.html

I wanted to pass along a few general pointers for those writing applications in Echo2 or porting Echo1 apps to the new platform:

• Externalize all Strings as though you were going to support multiple languages. I've found this to be an extremely beneficial practice, even when developing apps that are extremely unlikely to ever be translated. It keeps code cleaner, and enables one to quickly review (and even spell-check) all text that is used within an application.

Originally posted @ http://echotwo.blogspot.com/2005/06/more-fun-with-browser-quirks.html

First and foremost, I've been informed by a few folks now that blogs are in fact supposed to be updated from time to time. I had previously been of the impression that simply changing the page theme once a year might suffice, but I stand corrected, and will see if I can't manage to update it a bit more often. The lack of attention paid to the blog has not been entirely without cause....extra attention has been scarce these past months due to the sometimes frenzied pace at which Echo2 is being developed.

Originally posted @ http://echotwo.blogspot.com/2005/05/opera-konqueror-and-safari.html

A significant amount of time this week was spent on the addition of support for Konqueror (3.4) and Opera (8.0) browsers. I'm very excited about the idea of having more browsers supported. In addition to making the software available to a wider audience, they act as an additional check to make sure we're doing things right with regard to Web standards.