In terms of the browser front-end it uses a mix of jscript and Silverlight. The pure jscript alternative is still quite nice, but hard to make any faster (Chrome works best). You can see it here even if you have Silverlight (Windows/Mac, with Moonlight on Linux - man, that's slow though...)
The 'back-end' is all Python, as in the server generates tiles as it goes and dumps it out for the front-end to find (the browser bit).
I think with any new site it's hard unless you use completely open software with no browser dependencies, as any barrier can become a stumbling block.
Linux/OSX/iOS is (I think, happy to be wrong here) the primary desktop of a lot of leading tech people - and if they can't use my app then it's hard to reach 'mainstream' people. I think ZoomRead will fall victim to that unfortunately...
Where is the bottleneck in the JS version? The major browsers are coming close to releasing GPU-accelerated canvas. You might just be a bit early...
For example: the JS version is choppy, but usable at 2560x1600 in Chrome on a PhenomIIx4. However, if I switch to the Chrome Canary build (http://tools.google.com/dlpage/chromesxs) with --enable-accelerated-2d-canvas it is significantly less choppy. At 1920x1200 it is downright snappy.
The bottleneck is mainly in rendering. Plus I actually took a lot of 'blur n zoom' effects out already (which is where the silverlight version really excels I think). I'll put them back in and retry (it's a kind of blend like anim)
I'll check out the 2d canvas - thanks for that. Ironically the IE 9 works very well too, although that group of users always seem to have Silverlight already :)
With traffic non-existent to the site it might just be too early, or perhaps some best suited as a native iOS app instead.
In terms of the browser front-end it uses a mix of jscript and Silverlight. The pure jscript alternative is still quite nice, but hard to make any faster (Chrome works best). You can see it here even if you have Silverlight (Windows/Mac, with Moonlight on Linux - man, that's slow though...)
http://www.zoomread.com/ZoomReadjs.html?map=2010-10-03_04-40
The 'back-end' is all Python, as in the server generates tiles as it goes and dumps it out for the front-end to find (the browser bit).
I think with any new site it's hard unless you use completely open software with no browser dependencies, as any barrier can become a stumbling block.
Linux/OSX/iOS is (I think, happy to be wrong here) the primary desktop of a lot of leading tech people - and if they can't use my app then it's hard to reach 'mainstream' people. I think ZoomRead will fall victim to that unfortunately...
PS Had a blast doing it though! :)