As I see that this has begun (yeah!!!!), I'd like to throw out a few
requests:
* Please, please, please -- ensure that this is as extensible as
possible. Here's just one example--I've integrated the gwt-dnd library
to allow drag-n-drop re-ordering of columns. There are a couple of
funny corner cases, though, because I have no way of knowing when a
column resize has completed. Obviously, if you're resizing the column,
you're not interested in dragging it to a new location. I strongly
encourage you to think three, four, five times about making a method
private or package protected. Liberal use of JavaDoc with strongly
worded warnings to those of us who need to customize the widgets. I
know this cuts down on your ability to make under-the-cover changes
from release to release, but it makes it so that folks like me don't
have to resort to things like JSNI trickery or copying the entire
class or set of classes into our own code base.
* As a direct follow up to #1, fire some more events. For example,
fire an event when a column resize starts and when it ends.
* Flexibility is great, but often I'm just interested in the simple
cases...simple. My example here is the multiple-row header stuff. It's
GREAT! I LOVE it! (And better yet, our customers have been screaming
for this!) But, I don't always need/want it. And, it can make things
more complex. One idea would be to overload methods like getHeader()
on AbstractColumnDefinition...add a version that doesn't take a 'row'
parameter, and so just assumes there's only 1 row.
* More use of generics, less casting (for me). Some examples:
o AbstractColumnDefinition returns Object for the getHeader()
method. Why not declare this as class
AbstractColumnDefinition<RowType, ColType, HeaderType>?
o Rather than: "public TableDefinition<RowType> getTableDefinition
()", how about adding a TABLE_DEFINITION type to the class (e.g.,
"class PagingScrollTable<TABLE_DEFINITION extends
TableDefinition<RowType>>, so that the method could be declared as
"public TABLE_DEFINITION getTableDefinition()"?
I apologize if I'm being overly simplistic or if I'm asking too much.
I definitely apologize for not following up my suggestions with
proposed patches. And I sincerely hope that my suggestions are taken
only as the most positive form of feedback possible. I LOVE GWT. We've
bet our company on the fact that GWT is *the* best way for writing the
kind of interactive and rich apps our users are demanding. I want to
do whatever I can (with my limited time outside of my job) to help
make this toolkit even better.
Thanks!
jay
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