[
Date Prev][
Date Next][
Thread Prev][
Thread Next][
Date Index][
Thread Index]
[
List Home]
|
[eclipse-dev] Reuqest for Information
|
Greetings,
Open Doors Software has officially posted Conga, a non-AWT, non-Swing
GUI Builder for Java.
Open Doors Software is extremely interested in investigating the port of
the kernel builder technology to Eclipse for commercial gain but sees a
number of challenges in the SWT API because the base class of the SWT
has no meta-data, life-cycle or property pattern interface
implementation. These omissions in the design (common when not targeting
a widget for builder support) makes it extremely difficult to implement
a Builder against this API thru explicit, declarative inspection of the
meta-data and materialization of an arbitrary widget. Further,
persistence of a GUI which is extremely important is challenged because
there is not an empty public constructor for o.e.s.widgets.Widget, the
base class.
That said, these challenges may be overcome through a decorator pattern
over the entire API but that would not be my first choice.
In order for you to be fully informed on the nature of this GUI builder
and the issues in building a GUI builder that would compete with MS
Visual Studio, I urge you to look at Conga itself. It is disarmingly
easy to use because it is strictly visual. No java code is generated. It
generates resource files (*.gui). If you elect to use the script editor
to customize a specific widget, it will store the class bytes in the gui
file as well. You can build the GUI part of a simple app in hours and
days once you get the feel of it. Also, the API docs are online:
http://opendoors.com/conga/2.2/docs/javadoc
http://opendoors.com/conga for the actual product
You will see from the doc link that Conga owes its heritage to Bongo and
FreeBongo.
I am deeply interested in conversing with anyone actively involved in
the success of Eclipse on this topic to discover the commercial
feasibility of this project.
Kindest regards,
--
Lane Sharman
http://opendoors.com Conga, GoodTimes and Application Hosting Services
http://opendoors.com/lane.pdf BIO
