1. Eclipse e4 with XWT xml, XWT binding, and CSS styling is getting closer to Pivot, so Pivot for regular desktop eclipse plug-ins is getting less compelling. http://wiki.eclipse.org/E4/XWT
2. However, with SWT control apis on top of Pivot controls, leveraging existing java/rcp/jface/draw2d/gef/plugin code in the browser would be a killer use-case/app/feature! 3. Eclipse e4 has some subproject about adding JavaScript apis for calling eclipse apis. I like Pivot's approach better where Pivot can be scripted in any jvm language: JavaScript, Groovy (like best), and Scala, etc. 4. Maybe there are things in Pivot that could improve XWT and get closer to the Flex programming model. I have just started looking at XWT and Pivot, one thing saw was <wtkx:script> that I didn't see in XWT. Looks like XWT might add something for JavaScript scripting https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=266772 5. Saw mention from Feb 22 on this list about creating a "SWT Plugin" for browsers. Basically with SWT control apis on top of a SWT implementation done with Pivot/Java2D, you would have a "SWT Plugin" (i.e. the standard Java plugin) without needing another plugin. 6. How the swtswing project dealt with SWT's event loop may help Pivot/swt thread in this list from Feb 22 for reference http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/pivot-dev/201002.mbox/%3c85D2286A-8 [email protected]%3e http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/pivot-dev/201002.mbox/%3c4CCDA974-F [email protected]%3e http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/pivot-dev/201002.mbox/%3c6723c42710 [email protected]%3e -----Original Message----- From: Greg Brown [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Friday, April 09, 2010 5:22 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: SWT APIs on top of Pivot for Web based tools Hi Steve, > It would be great if there was an implementation of SWT control APIs on top > of Apache Pivot. > > This would enable developers to leverage the large body of existing > Java/SWT/RCP/JFace/Draw2D/GEF/EclipsePlugin code. This is an interesting idea. There would certainly be some implementation challenges (e.g. how to deal with SWT's event loop, since Pivot doesn't have one - it uses AWT's under the hood). Definitely worth some further thought and discussion, though. > Developers could create web based versions of their tools (from the same > code base as their desktop versions). They wouldn't have to rewrite Java > into Flex/ActionScript, JavaFx, Silverlight, Ajax/Html/Javascript. > Developers would be free to choose how to partition their java code between > the applet portion and the app server portion. >From our perspective, this is actually one of the major selling points of Pivot in general - it allows you to streamline your technology stack and use Java from top to bottom (similar to what Microsoft offers with Silverlight/.NET). I recognize that this doesn't meet the immediate use case you describe (allowing developers to re-use existing SWT/RCP code), but let's look at it from the reverse perspective - if we were to port Pivot to run natively on SWT, you could write your RCP app or plugin using Pivot's APIs and ultimately reap the same benefits you describe above. Greg
