>>>The old statements that web apps can't do what desktop apps can do is quickly going away.
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>We wasted tens of thousands of $ trying to implement a web equivalent to multiple resizeable/moveable/openable/closable forms in the Windows desktop, whose content changes when the master record number changes. Basically the users configured things across 2 displays including other apps like lookup tools, to make it easier and quicker to assess info at a glance and do their jobs as they move from record to record. Easy enough in Windows, but on IE or Firefox, unless you deployed a huge browser instance spanning both screens - meaning child windows no longer are in windows desktop and the 3rd party apps now are covered- then communicating between the windows was a big issue that programmers said was deliberately and increasingly blocked by MS and Mozilla to thwart hack attempts. They found a way to do it in IE, but the consensus was that MS could close this at any moment via Windows Update, leaving customers (and us) with a useless irreparable product. So if somebody has a solution for that on the web, there's still budget!

Meteor 1 should handle it not only for forms across different windows' proccesses, but should cover a form linked to same records updating reactively to data saves from anywhere, it was one of their showcase points very soon after making an entrance - at the cost of Mongo being DB of choice. Alternate DB approaches were workable via plugin, but not polished and then they settheir sights on GraphQL, but I have not checked recently.

As some Browsers still support WebSQL (pox on Oracle for killing it on Firefox!), in that subset something should be more to our mindset/liking, but using IndexedDB or ather HTML5 storage systems should be workable via asynch or worker setups.