SwixML

[Michael Gentry <bl...@gmail.com>]

Does anyone have any thoughts on SwixML?  I'm considering using it to
make a Cayenne-based application/tool.  I'm also uncertain if the
license is ASL compliant (even if using it as a binary JAR, not
including the source).  Thoughts on that would also be appreciated.

Thanks!

Re: SwixML

[Aristedes Maniatis <ar...@ish.com.au>]

On 13/12/2008, at 1:03 AM, Michael Gentry wrote:

>  I liked the idea
> that SwixML (and a few of the others, I suppose) stored the UI
> description outside of the Java code (more like a Cocoa .nib file).

Make sure you check out miglayout. I experimented with so many layout  
tools, from netbeans form layout xml files through to... well, lots of  
things. But miglayout is by far the easiest I've come across to  
describe the UI in code, with the benefit of not needing yet another  
tool to create the UI description in yet another obscure XML format. I  
know nothing about SwixML since that wasn't on the radar when I  
evaluated lots of these tools, so I'm talking more generally about the  
idea of abstracting Swing into some descriptive format.

Ari



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Re: SwixML

[Michael Gentry <bl...@gmail.com>]

Thanks, Adrian.  I'll take a look at it sometime this weekend.  For my
own uses, though, I really only care about Swing.  (Well, Swing is my
main consideration -- I want a cross-platform GUI even though I'm a
Cocoa guy, so I have to use Swing or make it web-based somehow.)  I'm
wanting to re-write/clone DBEdit (from WebObjects/OpenStep) into a
Cayenne application (kind of like Cayenne Modeler).  I liked the idea
that SwixML (and a few of the others, I suppose) stored the UI
description outside of the Java code (more like a Cocoa .nib file).

/dev/mrg


On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 3:04 AM, Adrian Wiesmann <aw...@somap.org> wrote:
> Hello Michael
>
>> > Does anyone have any thoughts on SwixML?  I'm considering using it to
>> > make a Cayenne-based application/tool.
>
> I looked into SwixML and other similar libraries some time ago. Back then
> I was looking for a library with which I could have some level of
> abstraction where the same UI description file could be used to render
> Swing, HTTP and PDF/Excel/Whatever.
>
> What I did not like with the most libraries I was evaluating was that the
> binding was more of a hassle than I liked. XUL was too complex, others
> included scripting which we did not like in our project.
>
> So in our project we then finally decided to create our own engine. Some
> very early introduction can be found on this site:
>
> http://somap.wiki.sourceforge.net/design_sobfv2_gozer
>
> With Gozer it is possible to have 1 XML file containing the layout and
> binding information and render this to Apache Wicket (http), Swing, FOP
> and Excel.
>
> To connect Gozer with Cayenne we had to write some extensions to Cayenne
> (named Jalapeño). These are DataContainer, DataTable, DataRow and
> DataRowKey.
>
> If you are interested in some more details, please drop me a note.
>
> Cheers,
> Adrian
>

Re: SwixML

[Adrian Wiesmann <aw...@somap.org>]

Hello Michael

> > Does anyone have any thoughts on SwixML?  I'm considering using it to
> > make a Cayenne-based application/tool.  

I looked into SwixML and other similar libraries some time ago. Back then
I was looking for a library with which I could have some level of
abstraction where the same UI description file could be used to render
Swing, HTTP and PDF/Excel/Whatever.

What I did not like with the most libraries I was evaluating was that the
binding was more of a hassle than I liked. XUL was too complex, others
included scripting which we did not like in our project.

So in our project we then finally decided to create our own engine. Some
very early introduction can be found on this site:

http://somap.wiki.sourceforge.net/design_sobfv2_gozer

With Gozer it is possible to have 1 XML file containing the layout and
binding information and render this to Apache Wicket (http), Swing, FOP
and Excel.

To connect Gozer with Cayenne we had to write some extensions to Cayenne
(named Jalapeño). These are DataContainer, DataTable, DataRow and
DataRowKey.

If you are interested in some more details, please drop me a note.

Cheers,
Adrian

Re: SwixML

[Michael Gentry <bl...@gmail.com>]

Not that you couldn't find it, but I should've included the link for it, too:

http://www.swixml.org/


On Tue, Dec 9, 2008 at 4:36 PM, Michael Gentry <bl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Does anyone have any thoughts on SwixML?  I'm considering using it to
> make a Cayenne-based application/tool.  I'm also uncertain if the
> license is ASL compliant (even if using it as a binary JAR, not
> including the source).  Thoughts on that would also be appreciated.
>
> Thanks!
>