That's a tough one. I just did some research on Vaadin, and in some ways it looks similar to Wicket, and I suppose in some ways similar to JSF as well, though Vaadin appears to be a sort of extension to GWT and the unlike Wicket where the Java code is mostly run on the server (if I understand right) in Vaadin most of the Java code is transformed using GWT and run on the client, turning the client into almost a desktop app that communicates with the server to mostly pass data around.
How to get any two technologies like these to work together is a good question, or at least how to get them to work together seamlessly. Say you want to write part of your app in Vaadin and part of it in Wicket... how will you get them to work together well? I think the answer is that you could have them both deployed in the same webapp, and pages written in each could link to each other, but sharing decoration (except by including the same text or using a tool to interpret a template that they can both include) and navigation and such would be a nightmare. In Moqui, like in OFBiz, most of the web UI stuff is based on writing to a writer or stream and being able to assemble various pieces of text to create a single web page. Without getting into lower level code, I looked at each of these three (Vaadin, JSF, and Wicket) and it does not look like they have a way to generate text to be included in a web page, and perhaps worse handling navigation and links is so ingrained in the way the tools are designed that nothing there could be shared (not in ways that I could find, though of course with enough creative coding anything could be done in theory). So, I guess the answer is that just like with OFBiz, with Moqui Framework if you want to use one of those web UI frameworks then use that instead of the Moqui XML Screens/Forms, and just use other parts of the Moqui API through the ExecutionContext that could be inited/destroyed in an event listener instead of the MoquiServlet (since the MoquiServlet wouldn't be used in that case), or if desperate you could use the Moqui class for static init of the ExecutionContextFactory and ExecutionContext. That parts easy, ie use Moqui API for services, entities, and other tools but not for the web UI... trying to merge and share artifacts between these kinds of restrictive UI approaches would be tough. On the other hand, if you can get plain text out of them, you can include that in any Moqui XML Screen. I don't think a better solution to this exists. Personally, I blame JSP and their restrictive nature that has been considered acceptable over the years, and those sorts of restrictions now seem to bleed into all sorts of web UI frameworks. -David On Apr 7, 2011, at 10:27 AM, Ean Schuessler wrote: > Hi David, > > As usual you are a fantastically productive guy. Its a little awe > inspiring. :-D > > Have you given any thought as to how different display technologies like > Vaadin, JSF or even Wicket could be accommodated in your framework? > Playing with Vaadin has shown me how I wish my views were constructed in > OFBiz. > > ~Ean > > On 04/02/11 01:09, David E Jones wrote: >> I still don't know if or how all of this will turn out, but here is the >> latest on the changes I've been wanting to make in the OFBiz Framework, but >> gave up on doing directly in OFBiz about a year and a half ago. The >> redesigned framework is a separate project that is now in beta (I just did >> the release today): >> >> http://www.moqui.org/ >> >> The Moqui Framework is now feature-complete for the planned feature set of >> the 1.0 version. There are details about this in the release notes, >> including everything in this release and the previous 3 releases, plus a >> list of features not to be included in 1.0. >> >> At this point the framework is far enough along that it is a clear >> demonstration of the changes that I would like to see in OFBiz, but that are >> difficult to do in a project with such a mature community and a large set of >> software that depends on it. Some of the main things are how the security >> and authorization are done, how the API is organized, the separation between >> framework and non-framework runtime artifacts, the deployment model >> (described in detail in the RunDeploy.txt file in the project), the way >> templates are used for simple-methods (XML Actions in Moqui) and the >> form/screen/etc widgets (XML Screens, Forms in Moqui), and how the web >> "controller" in OFBiz could be combined with screens and made hierarchical >> to introduce a lot of flexibility and far better organization of >> applications (less files open, easier to find things, automatic menu >> creation, per-used menu items/subscreens, and much more). >> >> Now that the beta is out the next step is to start building more real-world >> applications with it (so far the framework just has an example app and some >> basic tools built on it), and those will act as test cases as well. I don't >> have any intention to create another project like OFBiz that is a >> comprehensive ERP/CRM/etc/etc/etc system, and instead I'm hoping those will >> be separate project. >> >> However, I am working on a project to act as a basis for various >> applications that will share the same data model, common services, and >> derive from a common set of stories too. This project is called "Mantle". To >> see how this all fits together, check out the home page on the moqui.org >> site which has a diagram that includes these things. There is also a link to >> the github repository that has the Mantle UDM (Universal Data Model) >> progress so far. >> >> Back to the first comment: I don't know all of this will turn out. In a way >> it would be interesting to have OFBiz migrate to use these things, but that >> may not be of interest to very many in the community, so I won't be too >> surprised if that never happens. I've already heard from a couple of people >> who have proposed this idea, and I know some others would probably be very >> against it. >> >> On the other hand, if anyone is curious about such a thing, now it's >> possible to get an idea of what it might look like by look at the Moqui >> Framework and the example application and such. >> > -- > Ean Schuessler, CTO > e...@brainfood.com > 214-720-0700 x 315 > Brainfood, Inc. > http://www.brainfood.com > > <ean.vcf>
