Aaron, You're correct that this approach wouldn't work for DWR (at
least not in a straightforward way) since DWR uses server side classes
that need classloader access to the webapp. But Dojo is different in
that it is really just a collection of static resources (javascript,
css, images, etc) and does not require any server side communication
or even java for that matter. Developers typically just extract all
the Dojo resources into their webapp and load them into the browser
via references in their HTML.
As a matter of fact Dojo and DWR are quite complimentary to each other
since Dojo provides UI controls and DWR provides server communication.
As you know, Geronimo already provides DWR as a jar in the repository
that can be shared between webapps and versioned separately from the
applications that use it. Providing this same type of functionality
for Dojo is a little more unnatural since its composed of static
resources instead of java class files. But I'm thinking that making
the Dojo resources available in a native webapp at a predetermined
context provides equivalent functionality except for one limitation:
multiple versions of the webapp can not run simultaneously when they
use the same context root. IMHO that limitation is acceptable since a
large number of use cases are still supported.
Best wishes,
Paul
On 8/11/06, Aaron Mulder <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I'm not sure what you're planning to do with AJAX, but wouldn't Dojo
need access to classes in the web app? At least, when we use DWR, we
point it to server-side classes and APIs and it automagically
generates JavaScript wrappers for those. If so, I'm not sure it would
work to have Dojo deployed at a static location like /dojo in a
standalone web app, because I'm not sure how it would see the
user-specific classes. Maybe some ThreadContextClassLoader magic?
Thanks,
Aaron
On 8/11/06, Paul McMahan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Dojo is a popular open source AJAX library that's available under the
> BSD and Academic Free licenses. The DayTrader folks use it in the web
> UI they recently announced on the Geronimo dev list and Chris used it
> in the nice LDAP UI he did for GERONIMO-1823. I would also like to
> start introducing some use of it into the Geronimo admin console when
> its appropriate to do so.
>
> The way that developers usually incorporate an AJAX library into their
> applications is by making a copy of its static files (javascript, css,
> gifs, etc) in their webapp and referencing them from their servlets
> and JSPs. The obvious downside is that each application has a
> separate copy of the AJAX library, increasing the server's overall
> disk footprint (Dojo is ~3mb) and preventing the browser from using a
> single copy of the library files from its cache. Another downside is
> that the AJAX library can't be upgraded independently from the web
> application.
>
> I think it would be great if Geronimo could provide a more AJAX
> friendly development environment by helping solve these problems. One
> idea is that Geronimo could include the Dojo library as a native,
> standalone webapp with its AJAX library files laid out so that other
> applications can point at from their HTML. Referencing it in
> geronimo-web.xml would cause Geronimo to start it up and make its
> files available at some predetermined context root, say /dojo.
> Referencing it with a versionless moduleId would make sure the most
> recent version is always used. So AJAX enabling your application in
> Geronimo would be a simple as "add this line to your
> geronimo-web.xml".
>
> Does this sound like a good idea? Any suggestions or concerns?
> Perhaps this could be done as a plugin instead of a native module?
>
> Best wishes,
> Paul
>
