I completely agree on this. With the advent of AJAX and javascript
libraries and frameworks, it has become very easy, and perhaps more
powerful to create client apps on the web (I now consider the web
just a method to deploy interactive client applications).
Jesse
On Nov 1, 2006, at 2:37 PM, Mary Shaw wrote:
Have you fully considered the advisability of writing the
application as a client app as opposed to a web-based app?
I've taken a few such full-blown applications and turned them into
web-based apps. As time goes on, I (and my bosses) find more &
more reasons to develop new applications as web-based apps rather
than client apps, or port existing client apps to the web. There's
a lot less fuss when it comes to creating installers, testing &
deploying the app on different operating systems, and rolling out
updates. Users can access the site from computers other than their
main computer (in case of power outages or vacations). Things like
look & feel, layout, and buttons & controls can be easily
manipulated using CSS and the browser takes care of copy/paste and
client-side file access. You also have the ability to send out
alert or reminder e-mails if the app requires it.
I started a personal project about 3 years ago as a client app but
put it down after not very long (family reasons). I'm going to
pick it up again soon, and this time I'm going to build it as a web
application. I know it will be a better application as well as
easier/faster to write.
One major concern when deciding between web & client apps is report
printing. At my last job, I had to create printed reports from the
web, and it was a ROYAL pain - mostly because the customer required
it to be exactly like the original app's printed report with
pagination and special headers/footers for the first and subsequent
pages. But that port was from Perl on Linux to Perl on Windows (it
wasn't my decision) and I couldn't find a PDF library. I honestly
don't know what kind of PDF creation you can find for Java.
If you have good reasons for doing it as a client app, it's my
opinion that Swing can do it all and the best thing to tackle all
that stuff with would be a good book.
Mary
On 10/31/06, Mitch Butler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I'm a low-level OS-type guy with a reasonable amount of Java
knowledge. However, I'm a beginner at things like GUIs and Swing. I
have an idea for a Java Application that I would like to develop.
It will a standalone program that runs on a single machine and must
have a reasonably good GUI.
I've been teaching myself Swing, and all that stuff is very cool.
But I find myself having to write too much stuff from scratch that
I know has been done before. Plus my framework stuff doesn't look
very nice! I need an Application Framework to hang my code on.
I stayed up late last night (too late according to my wife!)
searching the Web, and I found a few candidates: Aloe, JSR 296,
JGoodies, Eclipse, XUI. There are also a whole host of other
frameworks (too many!) that are targeted more at Web-type
applications (AJAX, JLense, Radicore, etc.). I don't think I'm
ready for those yet. But then I don't know, as I will want to learn
Web App development eventually.
Anyway, does anyone have experience with those that I mentioned or
others that I don't know about yet? I want to be able to quickly
and easily prototype my ideas. I'm looking for something that helps
me with the following kinds of things:
- Error/Exception handling
- Logging (of events and special conditions)
- Menus, buttons, controls
- Window management (changing fonts and styles)
- Look and Feel management (I want to try different L&Fs to see
what I like)
- Tables of data, sortable in different ways, and editable
- Printing facilities for reports
- Multi-threading (kicking off a background task, and updating the
GUI with progress)
- Copy/Paste
- Message boxes
- File access
- Properties
The one thing I don't need is a database. My data is reasonably
small, so I plan to just serialize the objects into a file and
reload them into memory whenever the App starts up. That is
actually the kind of code that I am pretty good at. It is the GUI
stuff that gives me fits.
I'm using Eclipse as my IDE, and I especially like the idea of
actually using Eclipse as the framework itself (RCP). But that
sounds like a huge learning curve and perhaps overkill, and I want
to have something working soon in my spare time.
Anyway, I suppose if I spent several weeks with each of the above
technologies, I could eventually figure out which one meets my
needs best. But I don't want to do that right now (lazy me!). So,
I'm looking for advice from those who have more experience in this
area.
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