Re: [eclipse-incubator-e4-dev] CSS and declarative UI round up

["olivier@xxxxxxxxxxxx" <olivier@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

I am currently working on a declarative UI framework. At the moment it 
is a POC and is not publically available (it could be)
The UI is declared using EMF.  When the user changes something in the 
displayed view, the EMF in changed (including adapters triggering) and 
of course, when the EMF model is changed, the displayed layer renders 
the changes.
I also use higher GEF layer as controller.

The model is separated in 2 main layers :
* one is abstract (layout, layoutData, Container, Control)
* the other one (inheriting from the first one) is a concrete SWT model 
(button, text, composite).

I plan to add (in the future) other concrete models ('pure' GEF based, 
SWING, GWT ...)
(as an example of the questions without answers for me:  I am not sure 
to keep the button in concrete model, probably it should better be in 
abstract model , since it is a concept shared by all the concrete models).

I did not decide yet what should be the model guideline : XUL, XAML, ...
For me, since the framework should be the fastest as possible, it should 
be as close as possible to the rendered API (SWT).
Then (at the moment) I decided to postponed this question and to 
modelize the SWT API.


Using EMF as a model makes it possible to use other higher level layers 
at runtime (for example, using WTP EMF2DOM) ....
Of ourse we could also use m2m or m2t features to persist our model in 
other format.

I am currently working on a visual editor (not finished yet) and after 
this I would like to work on a model on using EMF DataBinding, and 
after, enabling CSS (as a binding layer of existing model).

The project will be open source,  but is not published yet.
I will be happy to have discussions with anybody about that (models, 
implementation ..)

Regards,

Olivier



Kevin McGuire a écrit :
> Hi folks,
>
> Over the course of discussions, many folks have come forth with a 
> favorite CSS/ declarative-UI implementation.  So much to choose from! 
>  So much to know!  As a first step, I thought it'd be helpful for us 
> to have a roundup of them all so we can discuss their pros and cons. 
>  Eventually we'd all like to see some working CSS code in e4 
> eclipse.org repo and at the moment it seems the main problem is we 
> have too many to choose from (a great problem to have!).
>
> What I had in mind was:
>
>     * Those who have some technology they'd like to bring forth
>       prepare a small presentation of its pros and cons.
>     * We have a call where they are presented.  We can as a group then
>       better understand our requirements and which technologies fit
>       those.
>     * Ideally we would have three presentations of 1/2 hour each
>       (including discussion), plus wrap up discussion, so two hours
>       max for the call.  I'd prefer a shorter call but I don't think
>       that's realistic.  If we have more than three presentations then
>       we can split it into two calls, since I don't know about you but
>       my attention span nears zero after 2 hours.
>     * Our goals should be selecting the technology which will be the
>       initial commit for the purpose of investigation.  We may change
>       our minds later, but we need to start with something.  If there
>       are two (or more) favorite technologies we can commit both, like
>       we have the EMF/non-EMF modelling work.  
>
>
> What do folks think?
>
> If we like this approach, I'd suggest we aim for a call in 
> approximately two weeks, to folks time to prep.
>
> Kevin
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