Rich Internet Application

1. Rich Internet Application
   The term RIA (Rich Internet Applications) refers to web applications that have the features and functionality of traditional desktop applications, it means Rich Internet Applications are a cross between web applications and traditional desktop applications that shift some of the essential processing among the bulk of the data for the user interface to the Web client while rest of some remain on application server.
                 
2. Benefits of RIAs
   RIAs are usually richer in functionality as they offer user-interface behaviors using only the HTML widgets that can include any technology being used by the client side, including drag and drop, using a slider to change data, calculations performed only by the client and not need to be sent back to the server.
                    
3. Shortcomings And Restrictions of RIAs
   Despite of having flair advantage over the standard web application, RIAs have several shortcomings and restrictions too. As RIAs run within a sandbox, so the correct operation of sandbox is necessary to run RIA successfully. If assumptions about access to resources are incorrect, RIAs may fail to operate correctly that restricts access to system resources.
                          
4. Rich Internet Application Development
   Traditional Web applications displays in a series of Web pages that needs a distinct download for each page, this is called web page paradigm. On the other hand RIA takes no longer time in downloading the page because the client engine may be prefetching some of the downloaded content for future use.
                      
5. RIAs Methods And Techniques
   It is the first major client side language technology that has the ability to run code and installed on several major of web clients. Earlier its uses were relatively limited but the development in DHTML makes possible to piece together an RIA system without using unified client-side solution. Ajax, the advance tool of Java Script becomes more prominent technique to develop RIA.