Elias, Thanks for the forward.

Jake,
Great to hear of the project. I would love to offer you any help in having
this project done. We have been considering getting GMF working on the web
as a great next step, and your work will at the very least be a great
prototype for the technologies you might consider.

We should take this discussion offline, but off the top of my head here are
a few thoughts you might want to consider:
o You need to figure out what code you want to run on the server. You are
trying to provide a lot of capabilities, and having them completely run on
the browser might make it very heavy weight.
o You might want to use something like GWT's Java to JavaScript compiler to
getting the GMF, GEF, and Draw2D capabilities on the web faster. Using this
approach will perhaps also make the code more maintainable.
o You are planning 8-weeks of work for getting GEF running on the web - it
will likely make sense to use something like the Logic example in GEF as a
test case as you make progress for your work.

There is also the thought that ideally you might want to consider using
Canvas for this code to be run faster.

Feel free to drop me an e-mail as you are considering some of these and
working on the project.

Regards,
Vineet



2009/4/2 Jacob Beard <[email protected]>

> Hi Paul,
>
> Thanks for the response. Here's what I posted to the newsgroup:
>
> Hi all,
>
> I'm currently in the process of completing my proposal to Google Summer of
> Code. I had the idea to make it so that the GMF workflow can be applied to
> the creation of web-based, domain-specific editing environments. The way I
> envision doing this is that it would slot into the existing GMF workflow
> such that, at the last step, where you generate an Eclipse plugin that
> implements a domain-specific diagram editor, you would have the option to
> generate a web-based, thin client version instead (much like you can for an
> RCP version), so, in addition to the EMF Java classes implementing the
> abstract syntax model, it would also generate an HTTP servlet, and all of
> the necessary JavaScript, HTML, and CSS to implement the editor. You would
> run it by launching the servlet and navigating to 
> "http://localhost:<port_number>/<project-name>"
> in your web browser.
>
> I talked to EMF and GMF newsgroups, and received positive feedback, but it
> was not until I posted on the soc-dev mailing list that someone pointed me
> to several resources involving the e4 project, including a presentation from
> EclipseCon on exporting GEF-based applications to Flash so they run in your
> browser[0]. So, clearly the goal of that project and the goal put forward in
> my project proposal are the same. But it appears as though they may go about
> it in different ways. Please correct me if I'm wrong here, but it seems as
> though the e4 project would take the entire generated diagram editor plugin
> and "export" it to Actionscript/Flash by running it through a compiler. The
> way I am proposing to solve the problem is one step higher, before you
> generate the code the implements the generator. I'm not sure what the
> relative advantages/disadvantages are between these two approaches. But,
> because my goal and the e4 project goal seem to be so closely aligned, I'd
> like to make sure that the work that I do: a) may at some point integrate
> well with the work done so far by e4 developers, and b) does not reduplicate
> the work already done be e4 developers. An example of a component I might be
> able to reuse is, for example, if e4 has exposed some core Eclipse
> functionality via RESTful interfaces over HTTP. Exposing EMF classes via
> REST is definitely going to take up some time during my project.
>
> Another difference between my proposed project and the work that was laid
> out in the presentation is that I feel like it is important to minimize
> Flash dependencies. I intend to target the Dojo libraries, including
> dojox.gfx for a vector graphics canvas. So, as the work that has been done
> on e4 appears to be mostly Flash-based, immediately reusing my work might be
> difficult.
>
> I'll be submitting my proposal tonight, and I'll still have the opportunity
> to iterate on it after that, but I'd appreciate it if people could let me
> know what they think about my project idea and how I might be able to align
> it with the work being done on e4. I'll also post a link to my proposal in a
> bit, after I've had some time to finish it up. Also, if anyone would be
> interested in mentoring me, I'd like to hear from you.
>
> Oh, and one last thing: I can't seem to find the eclipse.e4 newsgroup on
> the news.eclipse.org server. I'm submitting this message through the web
> form... Is this newsgroup located on some other server?
>
> I'd greatly appreciate any guidance anyone can offer. Thanks,
>
> Jake
>
>
> And then:
>
>
> If anyone is interested in the details of how I intend to implement this,
> the draft of my project proposal is here:
> http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=ddrn5wx9_1240gztszsg6
>
> This proposal is a moving target, even after I submit it, but still I think
> the core is stable.
>
> I'd love to hear what people think. Thanks,
>
> Jake
>
>
> On Thu, Apr 2, 2009 at 7:43 AM, Paul Webster <[email protected]
> > wrote:
>
>> Hi Jacob,
>>
>> Here is probably a good place to ask.  Traditionally eclipse -dev
>> lists are for the development of the component, but our newsgroup list
>> is so low traffic that I would probably be the only one to see your
>> proposal there :-)
>>
>> PW
>>
>>
>> --
>> Paul Webster
>> Hi floor.  Make me a sammich! - GIR
>> _______________________________________________
>> e4-dev mailing list
>> [email protected]
>> https://dev.eclipse.org/mailman/listinfo/e4-dev
>>
>
>
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