GWT - Flash - Swing [Lessons learned]

Approximately one year ago I joined a new startup company and had to decide what technology would be used to build a new highly graphical application.  The requirements were :

• display dashboard pseudo realtime charts and tables
• display graphs of objects and their associations and links
• make it feel like a state of the art application with some coolness factor
• make it usable and intuitive
• make it scale

So I built some sample screens using Java Swing, the Google Web Toolkit and Adobe's Flash.  I was able to somewhat build the same screen using each of these technologies.  Long story short.....Java Swing was eliminated since we wanted to run in a web browser with no installation required.  Adobe Flash was eliminated since it would not run on various Apple devices and required a lot of specialization.  This left the Google Web Toolkit.  I had never used it, but had just come off learning Oracle's ADF Technology which actually has a lot in common.   Also, the development environment would be Java with Google doing the javascript generation for me. Being a Java Swing expert put me right in the driver's seat.  

- Advice to any Java Swing experts out there.....learn GWT.  It's a very easy transition. -

To get a jump, I bought the Essential GWT book and started reading and experimenting.  I also started reading and experimenting with the copious online documentation about GWT.  Turns out that the stackoverflow web site would prove extremely valuable for answering detailed technical questions.

My first task was to architect the directory structure and modeling for the application.  Using a MVP (Model, View, Presenter) model was the way to go.  This would allow me to later change the view code to use any widgets (maybe Droid stuff?) without changing the model or presenter code.  I may never do this with my application, but at least it's architected to get there someday.  In a nutshell, the View classes do the widget creation and layout.  The Presenter code handles all callbacks and handlers to push data to the widgets.  The Model code gets data from my db into data structures that I can access asynchronously using rpc AsyncCallback mechanisms.

Everything seemed to fall into place as the application was built.   A spot for images, dialogs, events, tables, panels and third party javascript integration was created.  At this point, any new feature is more of a cut and paste of an existing feature, which is exactly where a product starts to mature.  

I am very impressed with the GWT performance as well.  Drawing tables and charts and lists is very quick and efficient.  Integration with some javascript tools has been quite easy and reliable with the JSNI implementation.  CSS overriding of the GWT widgets has allowed me to completely brand the application to our company style and give it a sophisticated look and feel.  No gwt-ext or ext-gwt here.

Here's to releasing the product and showing some screen shots here soon....

Welcome to GWT

After spending many years doing GUI development (starting with XWindows, DECwindows, then on to Motif and Java Swing) I was recently given the opportunity to move away from the application space and into the web space. "Build the same application you did with Swing, but make it web based" were the marching orders.

Now, I have to say that UI development seems to have not changed in 25 years. Yes, we got color, a mouse, animation, nicer fonts, etc. but we still create and manage widgets, think object oriented always, and need to put together layouts that adapt to screen sizes. Without even cracking a manual (actually a Google search now!) one can sit in Eclipse and pretty much guess what the method might be for doing something to a widget or for setting up a callback.

...Back to building my Swing app for the web. I was to use a technology called ADF (Oracle's Application Development Framework) with the end product deployed using Weblogic. Being a new Oracle employee, I had no prior knowledge of this technology and found not a lot in the internet about "how to" do things with it, so I decided why not share my findings as I went. My ADF blog was born. In very little time, I was able to start a new complete UI from scratch, taking advantage of templates, css styles, and a lot of code sharing. The complexity came in when trying to model and display data that was stored in our backend database that was "not" a typical RDB conforming data store, but that is a different story for a different day. Let's just say that where many web apps (and non-web apps) fall down is in building a multi-user, concurrent, auto refreshing application where all users coexist in harmony and life is good.

So now I've moved on to a very exciting new startup and was given free rain to "pick" the UI technologies that will be used. Slick, fast, usable, state of the art were the marching orders. After evaluating and comparing Swing, GWT and Flash, GWT was the winner. This blog will follow my adventure into GWT for the first time.

I knew nothing of XWindows/DECwindows and built DECplan, aka Microsoft Project before there was a Microsoft. Then on to Motif based NETarchitect integrated with an ObjectStore backend and is still the "fastest" performing application I have ever worked on. Next came a Swing based networking Control Center and a Virtualization Manager. Last was the ADF based Virtualization Manager and now a GWT set of applications.

I guess starting from drawing lines with X and building menu bars by hand has helped lead me on the path of making UI design and implementation "natural". I'm just wondering what will lead us into a new paradigm and really change the way Gui's are done. Maybe next lifetime.