Silhouette Web Browser: Toward an Integration of Web and Desktop Applications Based on Transparent Layers for Collaborative Works

We address issues of collaborative workspaces using multiple general-purpose desktop applications. Despite the fact that users would prefer to use familiar desktop applications in collaboration with other people, they must currently use collaborative applications such as Google Docs instead. This study aims to implement a new collaborative workspace support framework for general-purpose desktop applications. To create the framework, we introduced a transparent layer with two aspects, visible- and event-transparency. The background of the transparent layer can be opaque. The transparent layer can forward received events to other layers as well as to other applications. We have been developing a new web browser, Silhouette Web Browser, that enables seamless content, screenshot, and file sharing using the transparent layers. This study describes the architecture and implementation of the proposed browser and its applications.