Griffon

Swing just got fun againJames Williams

Agenda

> What's un-fun about Swing?

> What is Griffon?

> Getting Started

> Builders

> Griffon MVC

> Lifecycle

> Plugins/Addons

> Demos

> Q&A

What's un-fun about Swing?

> not knowing where stuff is

> can be very repetitive

> unresponsive user interfaces

> configuring webstart apps is a nightmare

> you're forced to choose between applets and desktop

fairly early

What is Griffon?

> desktop framework leveraging Swing and Groovy

> Apache 2 Licensed

> very extensible with plugins and addons

> allows you to code without worrying about the destination

platform

Griffon Application Structure

Getting Started

> griffon create-app

> griffon run-app

> griffon run-applet

> griffon run-webstart

> griffon package

> griffon list-plugins

> griffon install-plugin

Builders

> DSLs to compose complex object graphs

> Can automatically perform some common conversions

> Yield much more readable code than Java

Would you prefer this ...

public class JavaFrame extends JFrame { public JavaFrame() { setLayout(new GridLayout(3,1)); setTitle("Test"); setSize(100,100); add(new JLabel("One")); add(new JLabel("Two")); add(new JLabel("Three")); }

public static void main(String [ ] args) { new JavaFrame().setVisible(true); }}

... or this?

def swing = new SwingBuilder()

swing.frame(size:[100,100], title:'Test', layout:new GridLayout(3,1)){ label("One") label("Two") label("Three")}.show()

30 sec Swing(X)Builder Quick Guide

> Take the class name (e.g. JFrame)

> Remove the J(X)

> Change the remaining node name to camel-case

> Any fields that follow the JavaBean spec can be passed in

a HashMap

UberBuilder - Builders on steriods

> Allows you to mix and match components

> Avoids collisions by setting up namespaces

UberBuilder - Supported toolkits

> Swing

> SwingX

> JIDE

> Flamingo

> MacWidgets

> SwingXtras

> Fx (JavaFX)

> Gfx (Java2D)

Griffon MVC Groups

> Models - can use the @Bindable notation to provide data binding

- store the data for the MVC Group

> Views - represent a single display in your applications

- can be written in Groovy OR Java

> Controllers - the brains of the group

- can be injected with services

Binding

> general formats: - bind{model.property}

- bind(target:model, targetProperty:'name')

- bind(source:model, sourceProperty:'name')

> one-way

> mutual binding

Binding and SwingPad Demo

Griffon Lifecycle

> Initialize - run before any Swing code is started

> Startup - run after MVC Groups are initialized

> Ready - run after all events have been processed by the EDT

> Shutdown - all cleanup operations should run here

> Stop - only used by applets

The Evil Event Dispatching Thread

> edt - runs on the EDT using invokeAndWait

> doLater - runs on the EDT using invokeLater

> doOutside - spins up a thread to run if not already outside the EDT

> withWorker (SwingWorker) - for long running tasks where the UI might periodically update

Plugins

> are the delivery method to provide compile-time

functionality: - Builders

- Other JVM Language Support

- Testing Frameworks

- Addons

Addons

> add functionality at run-time

> can add or respond to runtime events

> can decorate MVC Groups

Guice Add-on

> injects methods and fields using the @Inject annotation

> Groovy removes the need for binding interfaces to

modules

> smaller footprint and faster than Spring

Guice Configurationapplication { title='TestGuice' startupGroups = ['TestGuice']

// Should Griffon exit when no Griffon created frames are showing? autoShutdown = true

// If you want some non-standard application class, apply it here //frameClass = 'javax.swing.JFrame'}/* truncated for brevity */

guice { injectInto = ["controller"] modules = ['NotifierModule']}

GuiceControllerclass TestguiceController { // these will be injected by Griffon def model def view @Inject Notifier notifier

void mvcGroupInit(Map args) { // this method is called after model and view are injected injector.injectMembers(this) // related settings from Application.groovy are injected notifier.sendNotification("hi") }}

Griffon Links

> Download: http://griffon.codehaus.org/Download

> Plugins/Addons: http://griffon.codehaus.org/Plugins

> User mailing list: user@griffon.codehaus.org

> Dev mailing list: dev@griffon.codehaus.org

Griffon Team on Twitter

> James Williams (@ecspike)

> Danno Ferrin (@shemnon)

> Andres Almiray (@aalmiray)

> Josh Reed (@joshareed)

> Jim Shingler (@jshingler)

> Griffon News (@theaviary)