[Opensource] Visual Expresso

[Jan.Moons at alcatel.be]

Hi,

A few weeks ago I posted a message on this forum asking if it was possible 
to integrate the Expresso Framework into an IDE like Netbeans or Eclipse. 
The main idea behind this was to create some visual tools (wizards and 
dialog boxes) to make it easier to create web applications based on Expresso.

Today, I am starting up the project to develop this kind of tool, but I 
can’t do this on my own I need help from all of you out there. Sandra Cann 
(congratulations Sandra) already told me that JCorporate will support this 
project.

Below you can read some of my ideas but feel free to let me know about your 
ideas. The ideas of this community are much more important than my own.

A wizard/dialog for creating an Expresso project :
è       give the project/application a name
è       create the web application’s directory structure
è       create the initial web.xml
è       create the initial struts-config.xml
è       create the initial expresso-config.xml
è       configure different database contexts, setting values for the 
connection pool

A wizard/dialog for creating the various DBObjects :
è       this wizard connects to a specified database schema and lists all 
the tables and views in this database schema.
è       select a table or view to work with or create a view or table 
within this wizard
è       give the DBObject a fully qualified name, description, 

è       select the class that should be extended : DBObjects, 
SecuredDBObjects, MultiDBObject

è       select the attributes you want to use, create virtual fields, 
read-only fields, multi-valued fields, 

è       options for specifying the getValues() and getValidValues() methods 
by means of : literal values, queries, 
 .
è       options for setting a custom where-clause and for testing this 
custom where-clause
è       when the wizard finishes the DBObject will be added to the Expresso 
schema
è       testing mechanism (using swing/awt) for browsing, editing and 
deleting records in a specified DBObject

A wizard/dialog for creating controllers :
è       fully qualified class name
è       set it’s parent class : Controller, DBController, 

è       define the different states and set one as the default
è       define transitions from state to state

A wizard/dialog for the creation of the Expresso schema object :
è       fully qualified class name
è       give the schema a title
è       set the version
è       default component code
è       set the message bundle path
è       select the DBObjects and Controller components from a list of 
already created DBObjects and Controller components

A JSP wizard/dialog :
è       wizard for browsing, editing and deleting records

A JSP panel :
è       a panel for selecting Expresso and Struts specific tags

One of the things I find very important about wizards and dialogs is that 
they must be re-entrant. This means you can create components using the 
wizards, then you can make some changes by hand, but when you start up the 
wizard again it must know about the changes you’ve done manually.

I also have a question about the IDE to use, should we build plug-ins for 
Eclipse or modules for the Netbeans IDE ? I know that Eclipse is supported 
by a consortium of important enterprises like Borland, WebGain, RedHat, 
 . 
If we build the tool for Eclipse will we get a broader audience ?

But if we choose to develop for Netbeans it is maybe possible to get 
support from some of Sun’s Netbeans engineers. Because Sun is also 
interested in incorporating the Expresso Framework into Netbeans/Forte.

Or should we create components for both Eclipse and Netbeans ? But then we 
have to agree about creating interfaces so we don’t have to write 
everything for the both systems from scratch. But is this possible ?

I will stop now so that the discussion about this project can start. If you 
don’t have any remarks but want to be part of this project, just let me know.

Maybe it’s best to reply to this message or create a message starting with 
visual expresso as the beginning of the subject. It will make our lives 
easier to differentiate between discussions about this project and the 
Expresso framework.


Let the games begin !!!

Jan MOONS
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