Cappuccino Open Source Framework Released, Brings Cocoa Apps to the Web

The developers at Silicon Valley startup 280 North announced Thursday that their Cappuccino framework for building visually rich web apps has been released under an open-source license.

Put simply, Cappuccino provides a way for web developers to build web applications that look and behave more like desktop apps -- specifically apps you'd find on the Mac OS X desktop build with Cocoa. Cappuccino is not just another JavaScript framework, however -- it's a version of Cocoa for the web, complete with a runtime that runs Objective-C code in the browser using JavaScript. The results of this new hybrid (called Objective-J) are impressive -- rich apps that look and feel more like desktop apps and that go beyond the Gmails and the 30 Boxes of today.

For a demonstration of what Objective-J and Cappuccino can do, head over to the online presentation builder 280 Slides, which the team built using the framework.

Everyone agrees JavaScript needs an update. That's why the 280 North crew released Cappuccino and Objective-J -- they were sick of waiting for industry forces to collide and work together to move JavaScript forward. Cappuccino enables everyday developers to start creating cool things on the web, with or without the help of the big companies holding up web standards with proprietary technology.

As 280 North's Ross Boucher said in an e-mail to Wired.com on Wednesday:

It's a framework designed for building rich web applications, like 280 Slides, GMail, or Meebo -- the kinds of applications that persist for long periods of time in the browser, not just simple web pages that you navigate around. As it stands today, building these applications is far too difficult, requiring large teams to constantly reinvent the wheel. Cappuccino aims to lower the barrier of entry to creating these sorts of applications, allowing smaller teams to build much more impressive results. Cappuccino isn't just about apps that have a great looking UI, the frameworks also handle difficult development tasks like undo/redo, copy/paste, document saving/opening, drag and drop and others.

The package brings in a lot of the cool features other programming languages have enjoyed for years -- powerful stuff proposed for JavaScript in ECMA Script 4, but never got off the ground. What it really boils down to is it makes succulent-looking websites like the kind you used to have to depend on Flash or Silverlight to build.

Because the technology is built mostly on JavaScript, it will automatically work on any modern browser without a plug-in. Using the code built into Cappuccino, you don't have to reinvent the wheel. Cappuccino promises to go farther than the 2D interactive properties of other web platforms like JQuery or Prototype. It promises to simulate many of the application-like qualities of your typical desktop application.

We hope to reconnect with Ross tomorrow (he's out celebrating right now), so we'll have more details about the project then.