Hello guys,
since I've spent quite a bit on EJX to implement the new features of the
entity and stateful caches, I'd like to say my opinion too:
1) I agree with both Andy and Rickard that EJX is a bare bone tool as it is
now. Extending it will require some deep thought (that anyway also is
required if we rebuild the AGF from scratch), but at least there is the
base, and it's working. Anyway, making it *really* user-friendly will be
quite complex, for example:
a) adding the right-click popup menus to tree nodes;
b) adding tooltips almost everywhere;
c) make the menubar dynamic, so that any new plugin (but not only, for
example also certain menu items should be disabled if you are in a certain
context of the application) can add-remove-disable menu items (so we can get
rid of the Action menu in a non-usual position; it took me a while to even
decide to click on it, and then discovering there was a menu behind)
d) adding facility that provides items communications on events (for example
if I disable a feature, then that menu item should be disabled, that
checkbox also and that button's text should become something else)
e) adding internationalization (I mean a GUI whose labels can be displayed
in different languages)
f) and on and on...
IMHO the most difficult thing is to have AGF not suffer of what happenede to
EJX in the last month: a total change in the metadata caused EJX-generated
xml files to be not valid anymore; furthermore should be easy to add new
features.
I liked the previous way EJX worked with the metadata: there were
*Configuration.java files that were the support for the configuration of the
jBoss' features (the pools, the caches, etc.). If you change jBoss'
features, then you've to change also the *Configuration files; and since EJX
worked with them as JavaBeans (via their BeanInfo), you automagically see
the changes in the GUI (no ejx code was modified). Now the XmlLoadable lets
you change the features directly inside the feature class (pools, caches,
etc), and that way EJX does not work anymore.
> > I had to learn in the past (even when I hate it) that the
> acceptance of a
> > tool
> > or an application depends on big parts on their GUI and
> therefore I think
> > that the administration GUI is very important and that I
> has to be appealing
> > and sexy because this is what the user see and not the sexy
> design behind
> > it (I also do not like this but it seems to be true).
> Therefore I like to
> > make
> > the administration GUI like this to boost jBoss.
> >
> > What do you think?
>
> I think you're right about this last part, but I don't see how EJX
> cannot be that. It contains lots of stuff that would make most of it
> trivial to implement. If it's just a matter of doco please
> just ask me.
> I *HATE IT* when people go "I don't understand it. Let's write a new
> one" instead of trying to communicate with the one that wrote it. I do
> not understand this line of thinking at all.
>
I agree with Andy: a sexy gui will boost jBoss. And I agree with Rickard:
EJX can be that.
Finally I think that we need first to solve the metadata problem, then we
can concentrate on having EJX do some weight lifting, follow the right diet,
call that brazilian aesthetic surgeon to eventually get it really sexy.
Simon
