Griffon - Making Swing Fun Again

Making Swing Fun Again

Agenda

A Brief History of Desktop Java Groovy’s Improvements for Swing Grails + Swing -> Griffon Griffon’s Unique Values Q&A / Live Demo

History of Desktop Java

Java 1.0 January 1996 AWT

Native Peers Subclass to Add Behavior


Java 1.1 February 1997 Inner and Anonymous Classes JavaBeans

Events Listener Interfaces and Event Objects

Properties getters/setters and BeanInfos

AWT reworked with JavaBeans Lightweight Peers Swing as an External Library


Java 1.3 May 2000 HotSpot JIT JavaSound Java WebStart as External Download


Java 1.4 February 2002 Java WebStart Reworked Focus and Drag and Drop JSpinner and JFormattedTextField

Java 1.4.2 September 2003 Windows XP Look and Feel GTK+ Look and Feel


Java 5.0 September 2004 Synth Look and Feel Ocean Theme for Metal Pack 200 Generics AutoBoxing Annotations Enumerations Varargs


Java 6.0 December 2006 SwingWorker API Scripting Language support (JSR-223) Improved Java2D Rendering Pipeline

No More Grey Rectangles System Tray and Notifications Support


Java 6u10 October 2008 Kernel Installer Nimbus Look and Feel Improved Java Plug-In

JNLP Integration New Process Model

Patch in Place Updating


JavaFX Desktop 1.0 December 2008 New Node Based Graphics Engine

Interop APIs for Swing New Programming Language

Java Interop on par with JRuby / Jython / Rhino

Should You Forget Most of the Last 8 Slides?

Groovy’s Improvements

Groovy Addresses Developer Pain Points JavaBeans Events JavaBeans Properties Declarative Structure

Groovy Language Features Closures Concise Syntax Meta Object Protocol


Java Beans Event Listener Java

JButton myButton = new JButton("Hello World");myButton.addActionListener(new ActionListener() { public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent ae) { System.out.println("Hello World"); }});

Groovy

JButton myButton = new JButton("Hello World")myButton.actionPerformed = { println "Hello World" }


Properties Java

String field;

public String getField() { return field;}

public void setField(String field) { this.field = field;}

Groovy

String field


Declarative Structure

def swing = new SwingBuilder()swing.frame(size:[400, 300], show:true) { borderLayout() scrollPane(constraints:CENTER) { textArea(text: bind { model.script }) } hbox(constraints:SOUTH) { hglue() button("OK", actionPerformed: controller.&okPressed) button("Cancel", actionPerformed: controller.&canceled) }}


Closures Can be cast to Interfaces Directly Usable for Single Method Interfaces (Runnable

et. al.)

Concise Syntax Boilerplate Code is Removed Lots of Closure Sensitive Methods Added to Core Classes

Meta Object Protocol – i.e. Dynamic Language Allows Any Method to be Called on Any Object Allows Methods to be Intercepted Allows Missing Methods to be Handled Allows Magic to Happen

Grails + Swing -> Griffon Grails

Inspired by Rails Groovy as the Language Web as the Domain Java as the Platform

Spring Custom Value Added by Framework

GORM GSPs

Grails + Swing -> Griffon Griffon

Deeply Inspired by Grails Groovy as the Language Desktop/Rich Client as the Domain Java as the Platform

Swing Custom Value Added by Framework

MVC Groups Packaging

Grails + Swing -> GriffonDifferences

Fairly Strict Runtime/CLI Separation No Spring at Runtime No J2EE

Servlets , EJB, JSP, JMS

Grails + Swing -> Griffon Similarities

View Scripts – JSP Pages EDT Event Loop – HTTP Request Loop Source Tree is Partitioned by Role

Griffon’s Unique Values

Builders MVC Groups Application Lifecycle Pattern Build Time Packaging

Builders

MyBuilder builder = new MyBuilder()builder.parent { child(attr:value, attr2:value, id:'a') favoriteChild(arg) { spoiledGrandchild(inheritance:a) }}bequethKingdom(builder.a)

Builders are Groovy Code Nesting Contexts are Closures Nodes are Method Calls Attributes and Arguments are Method

Arguments

Builders

SwingBuilder One of the Original Builder Samples Re-factored as a FactoryBuilderSupport

Builder SwingXBuilder

First Builder for a Non-Core Widget Set JideBuilder GraphicsBuilder

Builders

UberBuilder Composites Other Builders Intercepts Calls and Dispatches to Approptiate

Builder Can Prefix Nodesgriffon-app/conf/Builder.groovy –

root { 'groovy.swing.SwingBuilder' { controller = ['Threading', 'SupportNodes', 'Binding'] } 'griffon.app.ApplicationBuilder' { view = "*" }}jx { 'groovy.swing.SwingXBuilder' { }}

MVC Groups

The MVC Pattern is Great… But Swing Provides a Low Effort to

Reward Ratio

Lower the Effort Language Level Support for Data Binding Framework Level Support for MVC Triads

Increase the Reward Reusability of Triads

MVC Groups – Binding

JavaBeans Bound Propertiesprotected PropertyChangeSupport pcs = new PropertyChangeSupport(this)private String myProperty;public String getMyProperty() { return myProperty;}public void setMyProperty(String myProperty) { pcs.firePropertyChange(“myProperty”, this.myProperty, this.myProperty = myProperty);}

Groovy Bound Properties@Bindable String myProperty

MVC Groups – View Scripts Views are Groovy Scripts

No Class Declarations Looks Like Free-Form Code Compiles to .class

Method Contexts are Implied No Required Swing Imports Method Meanings are Provided by the

Builder

MVC Groups – Data Injection Methods and Fields are Injected

Global Imports createMVCGroup() Method model, view, controller, builder

Fields/Properties

On a per-builder basis SwingBuilder provides edt, doLater, doOutside

Other Builders Can Provide Their Own Methods

Injection Controlled by Builder.groovy

Application Lifecycle

Follows the JSR-296 Lifecycle stages

griffon-app/lifecycle/Initialize.groovy Before Any GUI Work Good Place for Look and Feel Setup

griffon-app/lifecycle/Startup.groovy After Startup MVC Groups are Initialized

griffon-app/lifecycle/Ready.groovy After the EDT Calms Down

griffon-app/lifecycle/Shutdown.groovy After a Shutdown is Successfully Initiated

Packaging

How do you… Keep an Applet From Thrashing the

Server for BeanInfos? Create a Self-Signed Certificate? Use Pack200

On a Signed Jar? Over 1 MB?

Create a Draggable Applet? Write a JNLP file? Switch Between the Applet and Object

Tags? When do you Use Applet or Object?

Packaging

Griffon Handles Standard Packaging Issues Pack 200 quirks Useful Applet Parameters JNLP Generation Uses Sun Java Deployment Toolkit

JavaScripts

Room to Grow

Plug-ins(Deeply Inspired by Grails 1.1 plug-ins)

Existing Plug-ins swingx-builder – SwingX Components jide-builder – Jide-oss Components fest – Swing GUI Testing easyb – Behavior Driven Testing installer – Packages (deb, dmg, rpm) and

IzPack

More Information

Web links http://griffon.codehaus.org/ [email protected]

Creators' blogs Danno Ferrin http://shemnon.com/speling Andres Almiray http://jroller.com/aalmiray James Williams http://jameswilliams.be/blog

Griffon - Making Swing Fun Again

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