
Show HN: LHTML – local, portable webapps - iffycan
https://github.com/iffy/lhtml#lhtml-
======
iffycan
I should also highlight this important issue about what to name this thing:
[https://github.com/iffy/lhtml/issues/2](https://github.com/iffy/lhtml/issues/2)

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zenojevski
If you like this kind of thing:

\-
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML_Application](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML_Application)

\-
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Compiled_HTML_Help](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Compiled_HTML_Help)

\- [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MHTML](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MHTML)

~~~
tracker1
I always thought CHM was a great format, and surprised it didn't take off...
though a more generic .zip (with another extension) where 'index.html' as the
start page would be good too.

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icebraining
There's EPUB, though it requires some metadata files along with the HTML.

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shakna
The EPUB spec is a pain. It's both overly simple, and overly complicated, and
I'm not aware of a single reader that is completely compliant.

For example, JS and XHRs are in the spec, but few readers allow them, for very
good practical reasons.

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fiatjaf
This is a great idea. If people can pass Excel spreadsheets and Word documents
back and forth through email, why can't they pass custom form apps made of
pure HTML and JS?

With this document format we're almost leaving the 90's and entering the 00's.

Now go get your friends and family to install the viewer.

~~~
iffycan
Thanks, I had the same thoughts, though I chuckled when I read:

> we're almost leaving the 90's and entering the 00's.

Because I feel the opposite: computers were first terminals attached to
mainframes, then in the 90s the pendulum swung to personal computers free from
the mainframe. In the 00s we swung back to the "cloud" (terminals dependent on
the central computer) and LHTML feels like the pendulum swinging back to
computers being able to run without the mainframe/cloud.

~~~
fiatjaf
Yes, you are right, but I didn't thought in these terms.

I was thinking that while web technology evolved so much in the last years,
people would still pass around documents based on formats from the 90's (Word
and Excel).

I've just written "web technology" up there, but that is wrong, and I think
LHTML shouldn't use the word "web" in its copy. What we have is "browser
technology", "html+javascript renderers", anything like that. That is the
technology that evolved. "Web" is a word that designates different things.

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pucado
Interesting. +1'd

