| Scout Based Desktop Product i.e. IDE [message #1839234] |
Thu, 18 March 2021 01:55  |
Eclipse User |
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Hello,
Currently, I am using Eclipse RCP based desktop tool and we are using eclipse Luna version. It is very old now.
We are planning to provide new look and feel to our tool and also want to make it desktop and web based tool. We were going through eclipse scout resources.
But, I am not sure, whether using eclipse scout, we will able to build a product/tool for desktop and web.
Could you please help me on this by providing some examples? is it really possible to build a product (desktop/web) based on scout like eclipse RCP.
Thanks
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| Re: Scout Based Desktop Product i.e. IDE [message #1839251 is a reply to message #1839234] |
Thu, 18 March 2021 06:33  |
| Eclipse User |
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Hi Himanshu
It sounds like a good plan to upgrade to the latest, web-based Scout version. You and the users of your application will benefit a lot from a modern, responsive user interface and all the new features added to the Scout framework since the days of the SWT/RCP client.
Here at BSI all our CRM customers with thousands of users migrated from the old, Swing-based rich client desktop application to the web-client.
This migration took some effort for very specific parts of the application (e.g. MS Office Integration), but for 95% of the application no specific changes had to be made in order to run the application in the browser. I guess for the typical parts of a Scout application, like outlines, pages, forms, etc. the migration is simple. But when your RCP client does some special things, not directly related to the Scout framework, you should carefully plan your migration. Things to check would be:
- Does your RCP application has a lot of custom code not related to the Scout framework, bypassing standard Scout concepts?
- Does your RCP application uses any features of the underlying operating system directly? Like reading/writing files on the client, making calls to DLLs, Interfaces to other executables on that client, etc.
- Did you build custom SWT widgets for your Scout application?
If you have a plain standard Scout application, these points are probably not an issue at all. But just in case: custom SWT widgets must be rewritten in JS, HTML and CSS. If you do require direct interaction with the underlying operating system or with other executables, you should think about interfaces: like moving away from DLL calls and make REST calls instead. You could also wrap a browser component like the Chromium Embedded Framework (CEF) into an executable, so you could still make calls to the operating system in native code, and have all the benefits of the new web UI anyway.
I hope that gives you some ideas planning your migration to the latest Scout version.
Cheers,
André
[Updated on: Thu, 18 March 2021 07:23] by Moderator |
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| Re: Scout Based Desktop Product i.e. IDE [message #1839540 is a reply to message #1839251] |
Tue, 23 March 2021 10:01 |
| Eclipse User |
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Hello again
Claudio just noticed me, that I probably understood your question wrong. Currently you don't use Scout at all, but just a plain RCP application, right?
So of course the answer is different, but also depends on your goal. If you're looking for a framework that brings support for multiple UI technologies, then Scout is not for you (anymore). Older Scout versions had an abstract UI model, which rendered into Swing, SWT or RAP widgets. The abstract UI model still exists, but since Scout 6 there's only a single UI layer left: HTML.
If you plan to use Scout today, you'll definitely have a HTML UI. But that should not stop you from building desktop applications with Scout. If you still need an executable on the desktop client, you could use a native wrapper around the web-application and use frameworks like Cordova or Ionic for that purpose.
This solution allows you to run the same Scout application in a web browser for some users, and in an executable started on a desktop PC for other users. Some points you should consider when choosing the right system/software-architecture for your Scout application are: should the application run on a central server? Or should each executable run its own instance of the Scout application locally? Do you have an existing backend (possibly with a REST API), do you want to develop your frontend in Java or in JavaScript? This document here will help you to find the right solution for your case.
If you don't find an answer there, feel free to ask for help here.
Cheers,
André
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