Beginning a project using Tapestry

[Noel Guilbert <no...@ondeal.fr>]

Hello,

I'm starting a new project, and I'd like to know more about the Tapestry 
framework.

First, I'm familiar with struts, and other frameworks like Ruby On 
Rails, or Symfony (Php). What are the differences with Tapestry? What 
are the avantages of Tapestry? Which version should I use?

Next, I've read somewhere that Tapestry has an implementation of Dojo. 
Where can I find more information about this?

Is it easily possible to create web services? Where can I find the best 
online docs ?

Thanks!

Noel

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Re: Beginning a project using Tapestry

[Sam Gendler <sg...@ideasculptor.com>]

Boy, those are some big questions you are asking.  I've been the guy
answering newbie questions around here for the last couple of days and
even I am going to send you over to the docs, at least initially.  I'm
happy to answer questions, but those are just too big to answer
without knowing more about you and your project.  I recommend you take
a look at the documentation on the tapestry website.  Here's the Tap
4.0.x website, which is the latest production ready version of
Tapestry. http://tapestry.apache.org/tapestry4/ However, many folks
are using Tapestry 4.1.x, which is a big improvement in usability and
native ajax support, but still just a little unstable in the sense
that the codebase changes frequently, not that the code you download
is going to be particularly crash or error prone.  but if you want to
stay up to date over time, you'll likely find yourself having to make
changes to your application to support changes to the framework if you
you use 4.1.  Depending upon your requirements on the stability front,
4.1 may well be your better bet.  The tap 4.1 website is here:
http://tapestry.apache.org/tapestry4.1/

You can get integration with dojo from either version, although in
4.0, you'll need a library (known as tacos) to get maximum dojo
functionality.  Tap 4.1 takes the best from the tacos library and
integrates it directly into tapestry and improves upon it.

Here's the Tapestry quickstart.  I never used it as a begineer, so I
can't say how effective it is:
http://tapestry.apache.org/tapestry4/QuickStart/index.html I have no
idea if it was updated for 4.1, but the url is different, so here you
go: http://tapestry.apache.org/tapestry4.1/quickstart/helloworld.html

For far greater detail, I recommend you work through the first 4
chapters (available free) of Kent Tog's "Enjoy Web Development with
Tapestry."  http://www.agileskills2.org/EWDT/ It won't be entirely up
to date with Tap 4.1, but the changes aren't that great and the book
is well constructed for beginners, although it does spend maybe a bit
too much showing you sub-optimal solutions on the way to finally
showing you how it should actually be done, in order to introduce as
much material as possible.  Useful, but a bit frustrating.

There is a project that is trying to provide similar/equivalent
functionality to RoR called Trails.  You can find a link under
"Related Projects" in the sidebar on the website.  I have no
experience with it.

There are other related projects that provide prepackaged integration
with hibernate, acegi, and other packages.  Again, I have no
experience, but you should find links on the site.

I also recommend you take a look at the tapestry wiki.  Links are on the site.

Finally, there are a number of demonstration projects available.
you'll find links in either the website or the wiki.  Probably the
most frequently sited reference application is the TapestryTables.war
application. Google it for fastest access.  It is a tutorial that
shows how to use Tapestry's very powerful table functionality.  Just
drop it in your container and check it out.  The application IS the
tutorial.

Geoff Callendar recently posted an update to his Tapestry jumpstart
application.  I don't know if it is a tutorial, empty application
starter, or a combination of both.  I just happened to spot his email
to the list.  Check it out at
http://files.doublenegative.com.au/jumpstart

About webservices:  Generally you wouldn't use a development framework
like tapestry to build a web service, since tap is all about making
something useful to a human rather than another computer.  For
webservices, you want to look at xfire or axis. I haven't used xfire,
but it looks like a far superior (or at last simpler) api for
implementing a web service compared to apache axis.

And to summarize: Tap actually has pretty thorough documentation
available, but it is fairly scattered and requires a certain amount of
browsing and searching to discover where it all is.  Between the wiki
and the website, I bet you can find a link to every item I've
mentioned here, so I'd start with those two sources.

Enjoy.

--sam



On 12/8/06, Noel Guilbert <no...@ondeal.fr> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I'm starting a new project, and I'd like to know more about the Tapestry
> framework.
>
> First, I'm familiar with struts, and other frameworks like Ruby On
> Rails, or Symfony (Php). What are the differences with Tapestry? What
> are the avantages of Tapestry? Which version should I use?
>
> Next, I've read somewhere that Tapestry has an implementation of Dojo.
> Where can I find more information about this?
>
> Is it easily possible to create web services? Where can I find the best
> online docs ?
>
> Thanks!
>
> Noel
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscribe@tapestry.apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: users-help@tapestry.apache.org
>
>

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