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JIDE Desktop Application Framework
Making a small frame-based Swing application is fairly
straightforward. Most developers are comfortable with classes
like JFrame and the normal palette of Swing Components. You
may even be familiar with our JIDE family of Swing Components.
However, things start to get out of hand quickly when an
application gets larger. For example, introducing the concept
of multiple documents starts one down a path of requirements
such as data management, menu wiring, dialog negotiations, and
multiple window management; behavior that is expected by users
but has little to do with core application functionality, yet
takes a significant amount of time and resources to
accomplish. Compound this with the challenges of
cross-platform deployment such as OS Guidelines integration
and varying Java VM versions and implementations, and you
suddenly have a non-trivial venture. Often, underestimating
the cost of providing this functionality can cause release
delays or compromises in quality and usability.
Unlike web development, there have been precious few
architectures available for desktop developers who wish to
create robust cross-platform desktop applications. On one side
is JSR 296, still in development, setting out to address the
nominal needs of a Java application. On the other side is the
developing trend to use large RCP platforms like Eclipse and
NetBeans as generic application frameworks. But these involve a
steep learning curves due to their origins as complex tools
platforms, and the likelihood of inheriting infrastructure
that may either be overkill or ill-suited often out-weighs
the benefit of using their architectures for general
application development. We still need a solution that is
powerful and flexible enough to meet the challenge of
cross-platform development, yet is easy to use and produces
maintainable and quality applications.
So we present the JIDE
Desktop Application Framework (JDAF)! JDAF is a
ground-breaking platform for developing truly cross-platform
desktop applications in Java. Decades of application
development experience, extensive R&D into developing
trends, and OS Guidelines studies have been engineered into a
modern solution that will not only save significant
development time and resources, but will bring order, quality
and an unprecedented level of OS integration to your desktop
projects.
JDAF is based on a
powerful "Managed Application" technology which
manages the entire application lifecycle, ensuring that you
need only focus on application-specific features. JDAF
provides out-of-the-box functionality such as a
Model-View-Controller architecture for data/view management,
unique resource bundle features, robust file handling, and
30+ application-related Actions handling single or
multiple documents, editing, and window management. Additionally, with a
managed UI your users will experience a native-feeling and
intuative application because of our OS Guidelines-driven UI
implementing standard dialogs, menus, icons and toolbars. Top it all
off with printing and help integration features, and even
a console application API, and you
have the most powerful yet easy to use desktop application
platform available.
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