Joshua Marinacci's Blog

The Portable MiniApp: Mortgage Calculator

Hey guys. A while back I started talking about something called a MiniApp and presented several examples (Weather, Christmas, Storm, and RSI Buster). I wrote another installment some time ago but never got around to finishing it because other projects (namely the book) took precedence. Now that Chris and I have turned in our final draft (yay!) I have more time to finish up the next MiniApp.

And don't worry. I'm going to have a big post addressing my last weblog on Swing issues.

Thinking about Java on the desktop I have been looking for things that Java does well but other technologies don't. What are the competitive advantages of Java and how can we exploit them? Something that I've always thought would be really cool is to have something in a webapp that I could take home with me. Something that exists on the web, but that I can pull off the web and use later, perhaps on my desktop or even pull it into a pda, cellphone, or mp3 player. With this in mind I present a combination Applet and Java WebStart MiniApp called Mortgage Calculator.

It's a simple mortgage calculator (I did a re-fi recently) that works as both an Applet embedded in the webpage and as an Application. Both versions use the same code base and they don't really care which environment they run in thanks to a clever base class that hides the differences (part of an application framework I'm working on).

Here is the applet:

And here is the webstart link (obviously you need a recent (1.4+) version of the JRE including Java Web Start.

(you must have Java WebStart installed)

Now, what would be really cool, is a button in the program itself that lets you download the webstart app directly. The concept here is that you can show a cool application in your webpage, and then, if the user likes it, they can launch it again via webstart and keep it.

Now of course it would be really, really cool if you could not only take the application down to your desktop but also to your PDA as some sort of MIDP application. This would be a little more difficult (due to the API differences) but not impossible. Of course most cellphones don't let you install MIDP apps directly from your computer, but the concept is there.

Any other ideas for MiniApps?

Comments

• Friend of mine wrote a car loan calculator... al in client side JavaScript. :-) http://platonoff.com/auto/carcalc.xtp

  Posted by: euxx on April 07, 2005 at 03:14 PM

• Hmm. Top of my head:

  transit schedules, maybe grouping them by my common routes (work, play, friends, etc.)
  movie/theatre/dance schedules, esp. based on people I want to watch (a la Tivo)
  pizza machine: order pizzas from my neighborhood favorite

  just playing around here, but thinking in general would be nice to avoid having to switch contexts (each website is more or less a different context) when I just want a small bit of information or a small task. I have a great local website for finding movies, but when I go there I have to drop everything and get into movie-search mode. Maybe mini-apps could reduce the overhead of the switch by simplifying.

  As for pizza, if the pizza guy can whip up a little web service, he can deliver the XML UI to me along with my next pizza, which, when I install it, means the order goes right to him. Localized, specialized, customized apps. Does one little thing well.

  The big deal is then portability...you need some back-end storage. But if I can go to any (foreign) computer and run a little applet/webstart app that, for example, gives me access to my contacts and to my bookmarks, and I can use that same app at home, would be useful.

  riffing, Patrick
  

  Posted by: pdoubleya on April 08, 2005 at 06:17 AM

• I have 15 web-start MiniApps online at: www.bobbingsoftware.com

  Posted by: spamblot on June 10, 2005 at 10:32 AM

• Good Info.Also please visit Refinance resources at
  California Refinance

  Posted by: reallife6565 on September 19, 2005 at 12:52 AM

• Clever MinApp indeed!

  Posted by: billytech123 on June 16, 2006 at 06:40 PM

• I will agree that it is a clever MiniApp but what about http://www.brokencredit.com using a similar application? I mean, are they the first?

  Posted by: billytech123 on June 16, 2006 at 06:41 PM

• Surprisingly versatile!

  Posted by: billytech123 on June 21, 2006 at 02:01 PM

• This java based mortage calculator is great, but i prefer JS calculators.

  Posted by: gciwo on November 10, 2007 at 08:10 AM

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