Well, if anyone out there would take the initiative of architecting an
OpenLaszlo IDE, I'm pretty sure that interested programmers out there
would pitch in during their free time.
I, for one, would volunteer as long as there is a write-up on how
first-time contributors can join. A write-up would really get us up to
speed. :)
[ simon.cpu ]
Geoff Crawford wrote:
I know I'm late to this thread, and I'm also just
starting to get to know the OL platform as we're
just about to try a proof of concept for the first
time, but perhaps my experiences are relevent.
We're application developers by trade, mostly
non-web based. We already have done the project
to get an existing client's ERP app on to web
services given their existing platform. That's
pretty well a requirement to preserve the
investment in their application code.
But the UI is totally different, and we started
doing some simple AJAX without really finding
any good tools out there. Laszlo wasn't on
the first go round of looking at tools before
a few tests with plain AJAX against the SOAP
back end. We found our share of small widgets
and that helped but did little for building
a DHTML UI by hand.
There are a bunch of products out there today
in the big Fortune 50 world being written up
in the Computerworld type venues. All of them
are geared to companies going to throw 200-500
programmers at applications. And also scales
of UI that are web sites, not full ERP systems.
Those products like Backbase, SmartClient or
and JackBe are all US$ six figures and up.
For a single project and require royalties for
apps like ERP. Not to mention they're not
geared to small learning curves with 200-500
developers the client is supposed to do that. (!?)
We found Laszlo after hearing about it before,
but not really giving it a thought as the
impression it was only for delivering Flash
content. Well 4.0 has changed all that, and it
has got some very satisfying pieces technology
wise. The whole ERP modernization is to get
into things like Model-View-Controller, and
having those things be defined in XML is right
there where we wanted it. Not only was the
back end logic and data already made that way,
it's being delivered XML via SOAP to the front
end we want.
The UI look and feel Laszlo is deliver is top
notch enterprise class. Of all the products
we ever looked at, only SmartClient is delivering
something of this quality, and that's so far
out of the price tag reach it's not funny. Not
to mention the whole rendering engine technology
they use looks similar.
The only piece missing is making our UI designers
as productive as possible. To me just an editor
with code completion is no "IDE". An editor is
still just an editor no matter how much color coding
and completion it has. I tried getting IDE 4 Laszlo
working, and haven't gotten there yet. It seems to
me to have just been abandoned at a time where you
probably have to back grade all your versions to
make it work. I followed their instructions of
downloading an old Eclipse kit with supposedly
all the pre-reqs bundled together. It does
actually install IDE4laszlo with that config
(my latest 3.2 Eclipse wouldn't do that) -
but no pallette comes up, the editor will not
start at all after complaining about a missing
class in the WST kit. And certainly no Design
window to do the visually based layout.
Spket showed up in the forums so I got that
right away and had a bit of trouble trying
to get the latest as an Eclipse plugin, but
the standalone worked immediately. As code
completion and editing goes, it's just great.
Sure anything that can read a DTD (or translate
the DTD into some other grammar via any number
of tools) can do that, but it's still very good
at keeping it simple. It does the context of
where you are in the doc better.
I was somewhat disappointed Spket didn't have a
bigger set of code snippets because that's part
of what we need Laszlo for - SOAP and the grid
in an ERP system is huge. But Laszlo editing is
not difficult, I can live with code completion
and the kind of drag and drop Spket has got
to help programmers fill in the blanks.
But without that design view to visually layout
everything, we're going to be at a disadvantage.
ERP screens aren't just an Amazon site where there's
plenty of data but little data entry. We need
our layout to be precise, and it's the one thing
I'm thinking is going to bite us going this
direction.
Now put together Laszlo's recent 4.0 announcement
to get us into the DHTML delivery with another
timely announcement - Borland now has Delphi for PHP.
It's got some interesting components for windowing
and tab containers that are interesting. But not
nearly as complete as Laszlo, and certainly the
rendering isn't even a close contest. But what it
can do is visually lay it all out, dragging and dropping
the components from a pallette - and then tying
events to the components you dropped. Borland
has both excellent compiler technology, and IDE's.
They are the one source of proprietary IDE's outside
of Redmond that survives. Their Delphi for PHP
just plain doesn't get it when it comes to web
delivered data, so we disqualified it as a possible
tool. But if you just wanted to drag some fields
around into some tabs and windows, well it had
that in spades.
If you had that visual tool for Laszlo, it would
really lead all Web 2.0 systems. It's the one
missing piece we're after. I'm not thinking
Spket is ever going to be a Borland, but let's
face it - the basis of everything you need is
there. There just need to be some additions.
*All* the components including the incubator
ones need to be on the pallette. In fact there
should be an easy way to add your own components
to that snippets area. (maybe there even is, but
it wasn't clear right out of the box if so)
But then there needs to be a "Design" window
that you toggle back and forth with the "Code".
That's the way all the Borland products work,
and what's missing here.
Code editing - already exists
Image creation - as mentioned before, also many tools
and it's unlikely to be done inside a Laszlo IDE
Animation - would be nice, but just a bit of bonus, and there
have been attempts to duplicate the many pieces
of Macromedia Flash/Flex/etc. I think *integrating*
to other tools would be much better.
Visual layout - that's the problem. That's *exactly* the biggest
need. If you could get what I saw of the IDE4laszlo
I saw on a video clip working inside of Spket
it would be enough of a start. And I'm not
worried that DHTML via J/S isn't going to show
in design mode. I compare to a Visual Studio or
Borland product where programmatically changing
a widget's X/Y coordinates (for example) don't
show until run time either. That's par for the
course and not a problem. Just make sure the
visual editor can right click on a widget in
design mode and get to the associated code,
particularly the handlers and methods.
Those are my recent experiences. I hope that helps
explain at least one person's needs. Any and all
comments are welcome, and I can go into more detail
if need be.
(and I wouldn't say no if a kind soul fixed my IDE4Laszlo
issue so I could see what it really can/could do. But
given the comments I see around, I don't think I'm the
only one with issues)
=====================================================================
Geoff Crawford Phone: (973) 361 - 4224
Innov8 Computer Solutions, LLC FAX: (973) 537 - 6946
711 Route 10 East, Suite 204 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Randolph NJ 07869 Web: http://www.innov8cs.com
Progress Blog: http://blogs.ittoolbox.com/database/progress/
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