I ran it successfully on macOS 26.4.1 with Java 21.0.1 and poked around. It looks good to me!
The one UI annoyance I have had with modeler is that the DB Type is unreadable for the selected row since the text is the same color as the background. [image: Screenshot 2026-05-06 at 1.14.43 PM.png] On Wed, May 6, 2026 at 10:01 AM Andrus Adamchik <[email protected]> wrote: > I am mostly done with the massive refactoring effort. So I guess I can > finally start looking at the MCP task. > > There's definitely more code to clean up, but it is fairly well isolated. > At the top level, I think the structure is solid. The main changes: > > 1. Abandoned the idea of separating controllers from Swing components and > treating components as mere "views". It only took us 20 years to give up > fighting the framework :) Vanilla Swing components are this old-school > beautiful OO: deep inheritance hierarchies (something frowned upon these > days), easily composable, cleanly encapsulated. Web development is all > stateless processors, so stateful component-based OO design is a lost art > in Java. > > 2. All the Modeler state is stored in two classes - Application and > ProjectSession. Common component superclasses are created to pass those two > around the hierarchy (so there's AppPanel, AppDialog, ProjectPanel, > ProjectDialog, etc. classes.) Make sure you use them when creating new > components. On a side note, the use of DI in the Modeler is completely > alien and is getting in the way. Have to keep it only for the purpose of > overriding defaults from cayenne, cayenne-project and cayenne-dbimport (I'd > rather we use builders in those instead of DI). > > 3. Fixed preferences mess. There's a single "repository" to map prefs > locations (PreferencesRepository), and a bunch of highly custom > PreferenceAdapters. Very easy to create new preferences (and hence capture > more user selections, component sizes etc.) Feature wise: > > * A 5.0-specific preference tree root, so that we don't pollute common JVM > preferences namespace > * Auto-migrations of most existing preferences to the new root > * GUI for preferences export as JSON > * GUI for resetting preferences back to defaults (with or without 4.x > re-migration) > > (still a few issues remain around renaming DataMaps and projects... > working on those) > > 4. Small UI fixes: clean window resizing behavior, borders around editable > table fields, etc. Haven't done FlatLaf yet. > > 5. Proper event hierarchies (clean immutable events); removed project > events from the core. > > 6. Logging console - still ugly, but consistent and functional. > > I have a request for the community - before we make an M2 release, could > you create a local Modeler build and take it for a spin? Due to the sheer > volume of changes, there may be some regressions. If you see anything > broken, please open a Jira and assign to me. > > Thanks, > Andrus > > > > On Apr 20, 2026, at 10:23 AM, Andrus Adamchik <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > > So I feel like the advent of agentic coding opens up new possibilities > for CayenneModeler. While some want you to think you can simply prompt > Claude to "Rewrite CayenneModeler in JavaFX" (or Electron or JetBrains > Compose Multiplatform), still with our limited resources, building and > supporting an entirely new thing is realistically out of reach. > > > > But I think we can take the current Swing app to a new level by > augmenting our rusty Swing skills with AI. A few of my experiments adding > this or that UI piece were mostly successful. A few idea on top of my mind: > > > > 1. A built-in MCP server for DB Import and CGen. This is to close the > loop on agentic coding, allowing to use both of these tools from an agent > CLI. (The MCP idea was what prompted me to look into this to begin with) > > 2. Fix table editors UX (selections conflicting with cell editors) > > 3. Write unit tests > > 4. Modernizing L&F. Not sure how far we can get while staying in Swing, > but worth a try. Looking at FlatLaf lib, which is a successor of JGoodies > that we already use > > 5. Implement dozens of small usability features (such as showing > currently selected Obj|DbEntity in tab view headers, etc.) > > > > My first pass (about 70% done) was not anything visual, but rather > refactoring the existing messy code to rid it of various architectural > experiments accumulated over the years (such as auto-bindings) and unifying > the MVC structure to be as close as possible to vanilla Swing. Ironically, > Claude was not that helpful in this process. It was good old IDE > refactoring, manually going through hundreds of files chasing dead code and > inconsistencies. > > > > Anyways, just putting this on the radar. > > > > Andrus > >
