[Scope-dev] Release of Scope 0.2.0

[<sme...@ya...>]

Release 0.2.0 of Scope represents a major release that
includes a sample file-browser application written
using the framework in a Swing context. Although a
very simple demonstration, the sample sources are
worth examining -- I believe they demonstrate how
effective the Scope framework is in simplifying GUI
development and in partitioning presentation,
application and business logic. Most of the source
code lies in the Model classes that build a simple
JavaBeans model to represent the filesystem. The
application itself is relatively trivial. 

The binary distribution includes an executable jar
that runs the filebrowser. 

A proof of concept of a servlet implementation is
hidden in the source distribution. Although not ready
for real use, this code has proved that it will be
possible to take a Swing-based application built on
Scope, and port it to a web-based application by
simply replacing the views. 

The core APIs are now almost frozen. I had hoped for a
more complete freeze but I've found that I can convert
the CollectionModel APIs into a simple generic
infrastructure that will enable View components that
handle collections in a generic way, eg generic
drag-and-drop. There's also some minor tidy-up that
needs to be done to consolidate the work so far. 

The next releases will concentrate on the
CollectionModel APIs, more tidy-up of the core, and a
full servlet implementation that will be built around
XSL views. The aim is to allow these views to be built
from embedded components in exactly the same way as
conventional windowing GUI development. Ultimately, it
should be possible to generate Swing and Servlet views
from the same view description, perhaps expressed in
XML. 

Sometime soon I would also like to consider
code-generation for the Model classes. I'm thinking of
a preprocessor that will take standard JavaBeans
classes and turn them into full Scope Models with
ModelChangeEvent firing etc added automatically. 

Summary of changes: 
- Major bugfixing, refactoring and additions to the
Swing View classes. 
- Added more unit tests. 
- Additions to Model packages to support conversion to
and from character streams for the servlet
implementation. 
- Work on Swing-based filebrowser application. 
- Work on servlet implementation. 


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