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by raboof on Wed 31st Mar 2010 22:43 UTC
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While this will allow some interesting tweaks and will have its uses there, it is still a LONG cry from the power that open-source yields.

Basically you get to manipulate the front-end of the application, but not the business logic or the back-end interfaces.

Let's take a dictionary application as an example.

You'll be able to change things at the front-end layer: the location of some widgets, perhaps even narrower search options, add 'look up in Wikitionary' links, things like that.

You won't be able to extend the logic and data layers: you won't be able to add a 'phonetic search' feature. You won't be able to store an extra field of information for each word. Unless the application already has 'add word'-UI you won't be able to add functionality to pull new words from a website like Wikitionary. If the application is being smart about pretty-printing/marking up the text, you probably won't even be able to reformat the text and fix rendering mistakes.

The list goes on and on.

Edited 2010-03-31 22:44 UTC

Reply Score: 5