The first attempted prototype for Paragraphic was a web-based prototype, built mostly in javascript with some php backend components. I chose to try this primarily since this would be a good way to make the application platform independent, and since the SVG graphics I was planning to work with had good support both for editing and rendering in modern browsers. With the introduction of javascript worker threads I was also less worried about performance.

While working with this prototype I established a lot of the fundamental building blocks and concepts I’d use in future development, but after a couple of months work I abandoned the web app prototype, deciding instead to try something else.
While the cross-platform support was great one of the critical limitations for me with making a web app was the many restrictions of local file access. Basically it’s very difficult to implement the type of basic file and document management I wanted, where you can save you file on your computer and open it again, edit and save it etc. Due to my limited knowledge of web front-end frameworks, developing the many custom UI components I needed was also taking far too much time and effort. And finally, I really wanted an application that the user would download and run like a real application, not something living in a browser that required me to always host all users via some server.