RE: [Springframework-rcp-dev] Samples

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Ben,

I'll see what I can do.  Tonight I am having dinner with some friends but I
will be picking up development in a few hours and continuing tomorrow (in
general this is a work weekend for me as my wife is out of town ;))

Yes, we like JGoodies forms.  That's interesting you're using their Swing
Suite.  Our framework does overlap in some areas with it (for example, we
provide a validation framework built on the new declarative validation API,
which includes as-you-type validation and typing hints.)  Since I haven't
licensed it, I haven't tried integrating what it provides with our work.  In
general, though, I can tell you we're trying hard to base the framework on
interfaces as much as possible; creating appropriate abstractions that
isolate dependencies on particular rich client tools where it make sense
(similar to what Spring does now.)

Let me see if I can address each of your goals:

- We haven't yet introduced the concept of Editors yet; that is, to say
Editors in the sense of the Eclipse usage of the word.

However, we do have views, and we have the capability to define view
definitions in a Spring application context, associate them with a page
template, and have the user switch active views within the application.
Most of my domain object editing has been done using wizards, forms (just
standard panels), properties dialogs, etc.  So for example, an "Object
Manager" view may allow navigation through a hierarchy of domain objects,
renaming, deleting, creating new ones, editing existing ones, etc.  A
"Properties" dialog might use our template-method style ApplicationDialog
abstractions for display and likely JGoodies forms to layout a form, and we
have a control-to-bean binding infrastructure in place that handles updating
and validating bean properties for you automatically.  A "New Object" wizard
may guide the user through pages laying out forms for creating a new object;
we have all that now.

Our view management provides the capability to track the active view in the
application, and to automatically register local action handlers with global
visual actions.  So in my sample app I am to be committing there are two
views, and when you switch between them, local handlers for global actions
such as "Delete" and "Properties" are registered appropriately.  This
ensures the global action is updated with the appropriate handler in every
place it is rendered in the GUI (toolbar, menubar, popup menu, etc.) (and we
have support for context sensitive handlers for tracking enabled/disabled
state dynamically.)

-  Our action framework supports spring application context definition of
actions, as well as action contribution policies to menus and toolbars.
This means you conveniently define an action's text, icons, mnemonic,
mnemonic index, and accelerator external to java code (and localization of
action properties is supported using a spring message source and spring-rcp
image source.)

- Views are currently NOT dockable in different areas within a page, and
currently we only support one view per page (in general this part of the
framework is quite new.)  But our goal is we want to support multiple views,
dockable and stackable on various places on a page, a rich API for
expressing a page template (think Eclipse perspective), and we want to look
at integrating with existing open source docking frameworks.  But we don't
have such capability yet.

- I have not yet had to address customization of the GUI based on the
current user and their roles, so no support for that yet.  I will likely
need this someday, myself, and am looking forward to using Ascegi in my
desktop apps in the future... 

I'd be interested in learning more about what a JGoodies "Editor" offer in
terms of functionality to see if we also should look at creating such an
abstraction.

Thanks for the great description of what you need.  I definitely think our
goals align.  To sum it up, I just want a quality framework that makes it
easy to build desktop apps built on Swing.  I'll try to get that sample app
together ASAP so you can make a better assessment of what we have today.

Keith

-----Original Message-----
From: spr...@li...
[mailto:spr...@li...] On Behalf Of
Ben Alex
Sent: Sunday, May 30, 2004 8:19 PM
To: spr...@li...
Subject: RE: [Springframework-rcp-dev] Samples

Hi Keith

Any chance of checking the samples in earlier, or point me in the direction
of the foundation classes and Spring XML fragments to use? I am extremely
keen to participate, as the GUI is the next step of our current project.

To give some background, Acegi Technology is a licensee of JGoodies' Swing
Suite. I noticed you're using JGoodies' Forms project, which is great. Will
JGoodies Looks (https://looks.dev.java.net/) also become part of spring-rcp?

For our current project's GUI, we're trying to meet the user simplicity and
development extensibility goals. Prior to spring-rcp, we were going to use
JGoodies' Swing Suite to build an Eclipse-like system with Spring as its
foundation:

- Editors edit domain objects, using JGoodies Forms, validation framework
etc

- Views provide information in a non-edit fashion, but permit create,
rename, delete of domain objects, and opening of editors

- Views are dockable in different panels

- Menus, views and editors and so on are defined by plugins in a Spring
ApplicationContext

- Menus etc can be customised or disabled based on security entitlements and
licensing entitlements

- Reasonable architecture so those of us using commercial look and feels,
validation frameworks etc (like JGoodies Swing Suite) can use them without
causing issues or loss of functionality for those who haven't licensed them

How aligned is spring-rcp's goals/direction/status with the above?

I'm looking forward to participating.

Best regards
Ben

________________________________

	From: spr...@li...
[mailto:spr...@li...] On Behalf Of
Keith Donald
	Sent: Monday, 31 May 2004 5:05 AM
	To: spr...@li...
	Subject: RE: [Springframework-rcp-dev] Samples

	Samples will likely be in tomorrow night.

	Keith

	________________________________

		From: spr...@li...
[mailto:spr...@li...] On Behalf Of
Andrew (Development)
	Sent: Sunday, May 30, 2004 2:56 PM
	To: Spring Framework Rich Client Platform
	Subject: [Springframework-rcp-dev] Samples

	Hi,
	Checking if there is anything about the samples yet :)
	Been investigating a bit, but I'm still quite lost trying to get a
small app running!

	Andrew - Development 

	mailto:at....@ds...

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