Good point Mary. One often thinks that they need a dedicated server for a web based app. But you can also run a local webserver on your laptop or home machine when you want to access a webapp locally.
With recent advances in javascript/ajax libraries (dojo) you can do some pretty "thick" stuff in the client too. -matt ps - This is easy to do in python too.... On 11/1/06, Mary Shaw <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Have you fully considered the advisability of writing the application as a client app as opposed to a web-based app? I've taken a few such full-blown applications and turned them into web-based apps. As time goes on, I (and my bosses) find more & more reasons to develop new applications as web-based apps rather than client apps, or port existing client apps to the web. There's a lot less fuss when it comes to creating installers, testing & deploying the app on different operating systems, and rolling out updates. Users can access the site from computers other than their main computer (in case of power outages or vacations). Things like look & feel, layout, and buttons & controls can be easily manipulated using CSS and the browser takes care of copy/paste and client-side file access. You also have the ability to send out alert or reminder e-mails if the app requires it. I started a personal project about 3 years ago as a client app but put it down after not very long (family reasons). I'm going to pick it up again soon, and this time I'm going to build it as a web application. I know it will be a better application as well as easier/faster to write. One major concern when deciding between web & client apps is report printing. At my last job, I had to create printed reports from the web, and it was a ROYAL pain - mostly because the customer required it to be exactly like the original app's printed report with pagination and special headers/footers for the first and subsequent pages. But that port was from Perl on Linux to Perl on Windows (it wasn't my decision) and I couldn't find a PDF library. I honestly don't know what kind of PDF creation you can find for Java. If you have good reasons for doing it as a client app, it's my opinion that Swing can do it all and the best thing to tackle all that stuff with would be a good book. Mary On 10/31/06, Mitch Butler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > I'm a low-level OS-type guy with a reasonable amount of Java knowledge. However, I'm a beginner at things like GUIs and Swing. I have an idea for a Java Application that I would like to develop. It will a standalone program that runs on a single machine and must have a reasonably good GUI. > > I've been teaching myself Swing, and all that stuff is very cool. But I find myself having to write too much stuff from scratch that I know has been done before. Plus my framework stuff doesn't look very nice! I need an Application Framework to hang my code on. > > I stayed up late last night (too late according to my wife!) searching the Web, and I found a few candidates: Aloe, JSR 296, JGoodies, Eclipse, XUI. There are also a whole host of other frameworks (too many!) that are targeted more at Web-type applications (AJAX, JLense, Radicore, etc.). I don't think I'm ready for those yet. But then I don't know, as I will want to learn Web App development eventually. > > Anyway, does anyone have experience with those that I mentioned or others that I don't know about yet? I want to be able to quickly and easily prototype my ideas. I'm looking for something that helps me with the following kinds of things: > > - Error/Exception handling > - Logging (of events and special conditions) > - Menus, buttons, controls > - Window management (changing fonts and styles) > - Look and Feel management (I want to try different L&Fs to see what I like) > - Tables of data, sortable in different ways, and editable > - Printing facilities for reports > - Multi-threading (kicking off a background task, and updating the GUI with progress) > - Copy/Paste > - Message boxes > - File access > - Properties > > The one thing I don't need is a database. My data is reasonably small, so I plan to just serialize the objects into a file and reload them into memory whenever the App starts up. That is actually the kind of code that I am pretty good at. It is the GUI stuff that gives me fits. > > I'm using Eclipse as my IDE, and I especially like the idea of actually using Eclipse as the framework itself (RCP). But that sounds like a huge learning curve and perhaps overkill, and I want to have something working soon in my spare time. > > Anyway, I suppose if I spent several weeks with each of the above technologies, I could eventually figure out which one meets my needs best. But I don't want to do that right now (lazy me!). So, I'm looking for advice from those who have more experience in this area. > _______________________________________________ > Ldsoss mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.ldsoss.org/mailman/listinfo/ldsoss > > > _______________________________________________ Ldsoss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.ldsoss.org/mailman/listinfo/ldsoss
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