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Extending the VE with RCP [message #85320]

Thu, 31 March 2005 22:32

Anthony Perritano

Messages: 32
Registered: July 2009

Member

Hi,
we are developing a RCP application and would like to include the VE in
it. Has this done before?

1. How hard would it be to change the underlying model that gets
generated when dragging components on to the canvas. for instance
putting a JLabel on the canvas generates some java code. we want to
replace the java code generation with xml generation. for instance we
want to generate JFCML(http://jfcml.sourceforge.net/) or swingml
(http://swingml.sourceforge.net/about.html) swing based xml markup. so a
user creates a JFrame on the canvas, it generates a JFrame xml tag. put
a button in the JFrame it adds a JButton xml tag with properties
identical to there java source counterpart. we want all the property
editors, etc..but want xml generation instead. is this possible? if so
what steps would we take to replace the model?

2. one our many platforms is Mac osx, i have used its ve version.
however it is very slow. is there going to be any speed performance in
the near future?

thanks
Anthony Perritano

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Re: Extending the VE with RCP [message #85335 is a reply to message #85320]

Fri, 01 April 2005 13:30

Dave Orme

Messages: 424
Registered: July 2009

Senior Member

Anthony Perritano wrote:
> Hi,
> we are developing a RCP application and would like to include the VE in
> it. Has this done before?

Not yet.

> 1. How hard would it be to change the underlying model that gets
> generated when dragging components on to the canvas. for instance
> putting a JLabel on the canvas generates some java code. we want to
> replace the java code generation with xml generation. for instance we
> want to generate JFCML(http://jfcml.sourceforge.net/) or swingml
> (http://swingml.sourceforge.net/about.html) swing based xml markup. so a
> user creates a JFrame on the canvas, it generates a JFrame xml tag. put
> a button in the JFrame it adds a JButton xml tag with properties
> identical to there java source counterpart. we want all the property
> editors, etc..but want xml generation instead. is this possible? if so
> what steps would we take to replace the model?

Actually, the code that is generated is just a view of an underlying EMF
model, so this is possible.

Nokia has had an interest in this and I'm also interested in this (with
XSWT (for SWT layouts).

Since there is substantial interest in this, we should get together a
group of people who are all interested in this and see if we can work
together to make it happen.

> 2. one our many platforms is Mac osx, i have used its ve version.
> however it is very slow. is there going to be any speed performance in
> the near future?

I'll let one of the IBM team members address this question.

Regards,

Dave Orme

--
Visual Editor Project lead
http://www.db4o.com -- The Open-source Java Object Database
http://xswt.sf.net -- XML-based SWT page description language

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Re: Extending the VE with RCP [message #85349 is a reply to message #85320]

Fri, 01 April 2005 13:53

Gili Mendel

Messages: 338
Registered: July 2009

Senior Member

Anthony Perritano wrote:
> Hi,
> we are developing a RCP application and would like to include the VE in
> it. Has this done before?
>
> 1. How hard would it be to change the underlying model that gets
> generated when dragging components on to the canvas. for instance
> putting a JLabel on the canvas generates some java code. we want to
> replace the java code generation with xml generation. for instance we
> want to generate JFCML(http://jfcml.sourceforge.net/) or swingml
> (http://swingml.sourceforge.net/about.html) swing based xml markup. so a
> user creates a JFrame on the canvas, it generates a JFrame xml tag. put
> a button in the JFrame it adds a JButton xml tag with properties
> identical to there java source counterpart. we want all the property
> editors, etc..but want xml generation instead. is this possible? if so
> what steps would we take to replace the model?
>
> 2. one our many platforms is Mac osx, i have used its ve version.
> however it is very slow. is there going to be any speed performance in
> the near future?
>
> thanks
> Anthony Perritano

The VE model (the core of VE) is EMF. As a matter of fact we used to have an XMI editor (a verbose version of XML) so
that we can do development for the GUI front decuppled from the Java reverse/generation support.... We have not kept
that editor up for the 1.1 release, but it is something that will be great to get back.

There have been many folks that expressed the need to persist the JFC or SWT component model in XML (see also
http://xswt.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/xswt/home). Providing a generic XML based editor out of VE is Dave Orme's (our team
lead) wish.

Creating such editor is not a big deal but as you get to the details (generic schema contributions, code assist, XML
editor, round tripping), it requires some work. I think that Dave is looking at rolling his sleeves up (is it still the
case Dave??) but I am sure if anyone that is interested to help shape such an editor, we would love to get the help.

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