I'm working on taking this dhtml component here:
http://www.dhtmlgoodies.com/scripts/dhtmlgoodies-week-planner/
dhtmlgoodies-week-planner.html
and moving it into tapestry. It is heavy on javascript, AJAX and
somewhat less so on PHP. The javascript has many event hooks which
fire off AJAX requests to it's PHP backend.
My question is, what is the best strategy for moving to Tapestry?
I think the quickest and dirtiest solution is to create an engine
service for each of the AJAX calls, which replicate what the PHP does
in it's current incarnation. This does feel like the wrong way to do
it though, especially since in each service, I will need to add
state, while leaving the page's .java virtually empty. I'll also need
to put in raw URL's to the AJAX services, directly inside the
javascript.
So, knowing there must be a better way, I've been trying to figure
out how I can leverage the new stuff in 4.1 to do the job. The
javascript events in the planner are not straightforward - they are
calculated, and if necessary, an AJAX call is made. I'm not sure if
an EventListener can be made to monitor a complex event like that, or
if you can make a custom event to which an EventListener can listen.
So if I can dip into specifics, I know I can get the planner to load
all the "appointments" for a week pretty easily. But how to deal with
an appointment move? A resize (change in duration)? A delete? A
double click for an edit? Each of these has the additional problem
that they can be made on the fly, and there can be many of them. How
much of this can be moved in to a @Script? I'm of course aiming to
have each of the listener impl methods in my Planner class, backing
Planner.page and Planner.html, which will have the planner from
dhtmlgoodies inside.
So does anyone have any suggestions on which road to go down? I know
my quick and dirty will work, but I'm not sure if this second
approach will work, nor how much time it will take, but it seems like
it is closer to "the right way to do it". What is the right way?
Thanks,
J
--
Julian Wood <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Software Engineer
Teaching & Learning Centre
University of Calgary
http://tlc.ucalgary.ca
