Hi all, Great to see this discussion here :-)
Well, I agree that going down the lane of basing something on NetBeans, Eclipse, IntelliJ, VSCode makes the tool a bit too big and complicated. Integrating something based on Eclipse into our build also would add Nightmares to that. I probably would have chosen Java/Kotlin with JavaFX ... but I would say, those who actually work on it should choose what they are comfortable with. So perhaps we could see who's actually interested, willing and able to help on the coding and then these people should discuss how to implement it. I'll be available as a "Mentor" if any help is needed in integrating that into the build or if PLC4X related help is needed. Chris -----Original Message----- From: Stephen Snow <s40...@gmail.com> Sent: Donnerstag, 23. Juni 2022 15:31 To: dev@plc4x.apache.org Subject: Re: [PROPOSAL] Implement a Java GUI application for browsing PLCs with PLC4X Truly, To scaffold an application that can be rapidly utilized in Java/Kotlin I would strongly recommend Quarkus from https://quarkus.io/. It likes to use the GraalVM and readily can build out to native or native in container. It can be deployed ootb in development mode with ci happening as you develop in netbeans say. Just my 2c worth. Regards, Stephen On Thu, 2022-06-23 at 14:59 +0200, Łukasz Dywicki wrote: > I been wrapping head around this as I had a necessity to watch CANopen > traffic decoded by plc4x. I ended up building fairly basic web page > which displayed most recent frames (so I could stay with local > socketcan transport), yet it was far from useful or portable. Recently > I also did struggle a lot with bloody modbus. My usecases are often > focused on making the commissioning to generate further software > configuration. > > My little research in topic of desktop applications ended up at javafx > which allows to make it small and compile to native binary thanks to > graal. My experiences with RCP platforms are rather bad (I did some > small Eclipse RCP projects), even if I have no issues with OSGi. > Problem > I see in RCP platforms is sparse development documentation, I also > perceive both Eclipse RCP and Netbeans as focused mainly on organizing > navigation while strongly depending on UI frameworks (jface/swt or > swing/awt). Effectively you still need to build tables and so on, but > with much more overhead. > Please do not take above too seriously in context of Netbeans, I don't > know much about it and its flexibility. I don't know how to build it > with Maven, hence it feels strange. > For the Kotlin stuff and frameworks there - I can say that any UI > project which Google is pushing is a red flag to me. Looking at GWT, > Angular 1.x (I used both) I simply fear that they can step back from > "experiment" after a year or two leaving everything to the community. > I > looked at kootlin and javafx a while ago and there is not much > happening there. I don't know if is because of maturity, javafx issues > or shift to other UI approaches. > > As I had no time to work on it I just postponed that to a future. > Yet, I > still dream from time to time about proper "fieldbus.app". ;-) > > Cheers, > Łukasz > > On 23.06.2022 14:46, Michal Harakal wrote: > > Hi, > > > > I would be also interested in, having a strong opinion on technology > > stack, but fully open to design and function. > > > > My suggestion is writing a Desktop App with Kotlin Jetpack Compose > > for Desktop: > > > > Props: > > * modern, state of the art, way to write reactive UI (natural way to > > implement unidirectional data flows architectures) > > * JVM target > > * open source, backed by Google And Jetbrains (they use it in their > > critical products) > > * Kotlin provides 1A class interoperability support with Java and > > JVM > > * since Jetpack Compose is originally created and used by Android, > > you can have an Android App out of the box, with little effort > > * integration with Jetbrains Intellij > > * even if you don't know Jetpack Compose Framewrok, you can > > contribute too with your Java/Kotlin skills imedialtely on > > domain/bussines etc. parts of code .. > > * easy to learn > > * with multiplatform support are native apps with their native UI > > frameworks (e.g. iOS) > > > > Cons: > > * Still in Alpha > > * backed by Google and Jetbrains > > * Kotlin is probably not the number one programming language here > > > > > > Best regards, > > Michal > > > Christofer Dutz <christofer.d...@c-ware.de> hat am 23.06.2022 > > > 10:55 geschrieben: > > > > > > > > > Hi all, > > > > > > Again, I was in need of a simple application to simply monitor the > > > values on a Modbus device (I’m currently configuring my Wago > > > PFC200 Modbus Slave interface). > > > I could use stuff like the “Modbus Poll” GUI tool, but my trial > > > expired and I’m not willing to pay 130€ for this limited > > > functionality. > > > > > > So, I thought, it would be an awesome addition to PLC4X if we had > > > some sort of GUI application, that uses the Discover functionality > > > to find possible PLCs and list them in a tree view. > > > If the use double clicks on one of these connections, it connects > > > and possibly executes the Browse functionality and lists up what > > > it finds. > > > > > > I know that I could simply start working on something like that, > > > but I thought this would also be a great thing for someone else to > > > implement as it doesn’t require too deep knowledge of PLC4X > > > internals. > > > > > > And I suck at building beautiful UIs :-) > > > > > > Anyone interested? > > > > > > Chris
