Wolf,
I am using swixml for a medium-size java application, and have found it
to be very useful. I like the fact that it is quite focussed and works
well. I was pretty impressed upon reading the source code, too.
The application I am writing is highly modularized. Using swixml I have
been able to write generic model-view-controller functions and have the
view components filled in upon reading an xml file. I have a dozen or so
different panels, and they can all use the same class for the view. For
each panel I have only to write the swixml file and the action listeners.
For modularities sake I want the action listeners to be in separate
classes. Therefore I am using the swix engine construction which allows
the "client" to be specified. This requires the creation of a new swix
engine object every time a new panel is created. I'm concerned about the
speed as the application grows larger. Would it be possible to include a
setClient call in SwixEngine so that the client could be changed in an
existing swixengine? Seeing how client is used in the code, it seems so,
assuming that idmap would be cleared in this step. Another reason for
this addition is in the use of registerTag in this situation. I'd like
the individual modules to be able to register custom components and have
them be available to all subsequent panels, but this information gets
lost for a new swix engine occurrence unless I somehow maintain it and
reregister everthing. So I think the setClient and a tag that registers
custom components would be very powerful.
Another suggestion would be to make comboboxes easier, some alternative
to coding a special class for each combo box. A list of strings as nodes
or an attribute would be fine. As mentioned above, my goal is to have a
single view class and a single action class for each panel.
Thanks for writing a very nice package, and please feel free to explain
if I am not fully understanding its use.
Ted Hesselroth
