[udig-devel] Re: use of swing

["Matthias Basler" <matthiasbasler@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Andrea Aime wrote:

> > 1. Building widgets for Swing AND SWT at the same time did turn out
> > to be much more work than I expected. Almost no chance of sharing any
> > code...
> 
> And it makes sense to build one for Swing and not for SWT in my opinion.
> Why? Because if you're targeting SWT you'll probably want to use
> uDig plugins to build your software anyways... the level of reuse would
> be higher. It's hard to find fure SWT/JFace apps around, most are really
> using the RCP (Azureus is one of the most notable exceptions).

I do see a need to build SWT/JFace widgets as well - for two reasons:

1. uDig is missing some widgets, most notably a widget for simplyfing the creation of more complex SLD styles and for more convenient CRS selection/assembly (I have created the latter one.)

2. Although most people interested in SWT/JFace would probably start extending uDig, this is not always true. Some might just want to use a few of it's widgets and create a different kind of GIS app from them, because uDig does not fit their needs or because they already have an application that just misses spatial support. For example, as the uDig team has itself noted, uDig doesn't have a "GIS viewer" and is overdesigned if you just need a view to show some spatial data in you own app. This is something that could imho addressed if there were a separate map display widget equivalent to the JMapPane.


> > - Should it support
> > only Geotools or should it support other GIS libraries via an
> > additional layer of abstraction? 
> 
> No... too much rope, you end up hanging yourself.

Exactly my experience... ;-)

> I'd say, take GO-1 as an inspiration, but a spec like GO-1 does not
> make much sense in my opinion... what do you interoperate with? Nothing.
> So there's no point in having a standard, whilst it's useful to have
> a reference design to help you develop your own way of solving the
> problem.

Agree.

> > 5. Different goals. I am geared towars a desktop GIS and image
> > processing, GeoTools/uDig still has its priority in WebGIS (OGC) and
> > vector data.
> 
> OGC yes, vector data... hum... have a look at what the 2.3.x branch
> and Simone and Alessio work can do and be amazed :-)

Yes, this is on my list of things to try out.

> Hmm... just to add to your rant, I'd say that we need an uDig
> competitor, even a small one, to fuel the development of anything swing
> related (by small, I mean something that does not aim to be a platform,
> but just an app). Developer of the Swing components should eat their own
> dog food by using it in a real app, otherwise it becomes just an
> "academic" effort.

I fully agree.
-- 
Matthias Basler
matthiasbasler@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx