Re: Revisiting Support for GWT Designer
On Sat, Jan 3, 2015 at 12:58 PM, Jens wrote: > A bit off topic, but: The real value of GWT for me has been the ability >> to write browser apps without HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Java (you know, >> spaghetti) - being able to use Java only. As you start adding HTML and CSS >> to GWT apps (the UI part), I question the whole value of GWT. >> > > The value of GWT is its tooling support because it can reuse tooling from > the Java world. That is literally the only reason that really counts. > > GWT is a leaky abstraction and will always be. If you refuse to learn more > about the platform you are programming apps for (the web and its > technologies) then you are limiting yourself. Good luck writing a smooth > mobile website/app with custom UI and corporate identity theme without > knowing HTML/CSS and browser reflows. > It scares me that you believe that because of what it may mean about the direction of GWT. I hope a sufficient number think as I do. While I agree that (to put it as negatively as I can, as you did) "GWT is a leaky abstraction that will always be", so too is HTML a lowest common denominator, leaky abstraction over display technology. The only reason HTML has survived is because it is not controlled by any single commercial enterprise - politics. There is no display technology I've seen in 35 years worse than HTML. It utterly requires never ending adjustments to make it flexible. It is trash. The whole industry is turned on its head trying to make something usable out of HTML. GWT is the best attempt to make something decent out of HTML. Although I have many, many years experience programming in C, I "refuse" to learn the underlying machine instructions Blake -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Google Web Toolkit" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to google-web-toolkit+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to google-web-toolkit@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/google-web-toolkit. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Revisiting Support for GWT Designer
For me GWT brings sanity in an insane platform. By sanity I mean mostly static typing. Javascript, css and html are extremely fragile in typos and therefore refactorings. Since I am not that smart to figure out the correct interfaces with the first (or even the second) pass the refactoring is the only thing that is sure that will happen. So when I am changing method signatures, or lass hierarchies it is a very good thing that the compiler (or the IDE) will tell me that you can't do that because you have 26 internal clients of that method. With pure javascript I would have the options of grep or just don't touch the code anymore. The same goes with css. I am willing to pay the price (almost any price actually) in order to know from the compiler where each css class definition is used - never mind the obfuscation (think namespacing) - never mind the the variable substitution that pure CSS lacks, are extremely nice features. The same goes for HTML. UIBinder is the killer feature not the GWT designer - you can't really program without knowing the platform. At some point you will need to understand it. The only question is if you are going to have tools to help you do that or you are going to have everything in your mind for ever (in case you need to revisit code 3 months later) playing the role of a compiler or static type checker. Therefore GWT has great value for me. It would be nice if GWT was the equivalent of Qt for the web but it isn't. If you just accept the insane fact that the javascript is the new assembly and the resistance is futile you may come into terms with the ugly truth. Vassilis On Sat, Jan 3, 2015 at 8:58 PM, Jens wrote: > A bit off topic, but: The real value of GWT for me has been the ability >> to write browser apps without HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Java (you know, >> spaghetti) - being able to use Java only. As you start adding HTML and CSS >> to GWT apps (the UI part), I question the whole value of GWT. >> > > The value of GWT is its tooling support because it can reuse tooling from > the Java world. That is literally the only reason that really counts. > > GWT is a leaky abstraction and will always be. If you refuse to learn more > about the platform you are programming apps for (the web and its > technologies) then you are limiting yourself. Good luck writing a smooth > mobile website/app with custom UI and corporate identity theme without > knowing HTML/CSS and browser reflows. > > But yes that is off topic. > > -- J. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Google Web Toolkit" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to google-web-toolkit+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to google-web-toolkit@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/google-web-toolkit. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- Vassilis Virvilis -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Google Web Toolkit" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to google-web-toolkit+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to google-web-toolkit@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/google-web-toolkit. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Revisiting Support for GWT Designer
> > A bit off topic, but: The real value of GWT for me has been the ability > to write browser apps without HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Java (you know, > spaghetti) - being able to use Java only. As you start adding HTML and CSS > to GWT apps (the UI part), I question the whole value of GWT. > The value of GWT is its tooling support because it can reuse tooling from the Java world. That is literally the only reason that really counts. GWT is a leaky abstraction and will always be. If you refuse to learn more about the platform you are programming apps for (the web and its technologies) then you are limiting yourself. Good luck writing a smooth mobile website/app with custom UI and corporate identity theme without knowing HTML/CSS and browser reflows. But yes that is off topic. -- J. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Google Web Toolkit" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to google-web-toolkit+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to google-web-toolkit@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/google-web-toolkit. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Revisiting Support for GWT Designer
A bit off topic, but: The real value of GWT for me has been the ability to write browser apps without HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Java (you know, spaghetti) - being able to use Java only. As you start adding HTML and CSS to GWT apps (the UI part), I question the whole value of GWT. In that case, what is the difference between using GWT with HTML/CSS vs. something like Angular.js? I think the big payoff with GWT is the one language and magic integration between front and back ends. This is big. Being able to add HTML/CSS on one-off, special cases is cool too. Pushing towards more HTML/CSS is totally missing the point. For those of us not "pretty well with HTML + CSS in general", the appeal of GWT could be lost. GWT Designer was extremely nice, again, for those of us not "pretty well with HTML + CSS in general". Blake On Fri, Jan 2, 2015 at 7:12 PM, Jens wrote: > Probably the wrong forum since GWT Designer was never managed by the GWT > team itself at Google. Making it a community project on Github is probably > the best bet to keep it alive. > > Generally I think UI designers can make code unreadable if you don't go > the extra mile and give all elements a name, otherwise your variables often > end up button1, button2, button3 in code. You also have to switch often > between mouse to place components and keyboard to further adjust > properties. Maybe GWT designer is better at these points but personally I > always had the feeling I wasn't really slower without a UI designer. > > In GWT you mostly use a HTMLPanel as root with normal HTML inside and with > some other widgets here and there. So an alternative to GWT designer would > be to just use any HTML editor (or even the browser itself, like Chrome > workspaces) to create the HTML + CSS part of your UI. Then you copy it into > your UiBinder file, making the root element a HTMLPanel and replace input > elements and such with their corresponding GWT widget. Sure you still need > to write the Java part of your UiBinder file but at least you can create > the UI design mostly visual in your HTML editing tool of choice. > > Personally I never used GWT designer and I am not feeling slow at writing > UI layouts directly in UiBinder. On the other hand I am pretty well with > HTML + CSS in general so it might be different if I would not have that > knowledge. > > Maybe you just give raw UiBinder or any other HTML authoring tool a try. > > -- J. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Google Web Toolkit" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to google-web-toolkit+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to google-web-toolkit@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/google-web-toolkit. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Google Web Toolkit" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to google-web-toolkit+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to google-web-toolkit@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/google-web-toolkit. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Revisiting Support for GWT Designer
Probably the wrong forum since GWT Designer was never managed by the GWT team itself at Google. Making it a community project on Github is probably the best bet to keep it alive. Generally I think UI designers can make code unreadable if you don't go the extra mile and give all elements a name, otherwise your variables often end up button1, button2, button3 in code. You also have to switch often between mouse to place components and keyboard to further adjust properties. Maybe GWT designer is better at these points but personally I always had the feeling I wasn't really slower without a UI designer. In GWT you mostly use a HTMLPanel as root with normal HTML inside and with some other widgets here and there. So an alternative to GWT designer would be to just use any HTML editor (or even the browser itself, like Chrome workspaces) to create the HTML + CSS part of your UI. Then you copy it into your UiBinder file, making the root element a HTMLPanel and replace input elements and such with their corresponding GWT widget. Sure you still need to write the Java part of your UiBinder file but at least you can create the UI design mostly visual in your HTML editing tool of choice. Personally I never used GWT designer and I am not feeling slow at writing UI layouts directly in UiBinder. On the other hand I am pretty well with HTML + CSS in general so it might be different if I would not have that knowledge. Maybe you just give raw UiBinder or any other HTML authoring tool a try. -- J. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Google Web Toolkit" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to google-web-toolkit+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to google-web-toolkit@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/google-web-toolkit. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Revisiting Support for GWT Designer
Is there any possibility that support for GWT Designer will be revisited in future versions? For complex UIs/layouts, being able to use a graphical RAD tool makes the initial development process much easier/faster. We are currently using GWT 2.6.1 for one of our projects, and would like to migrate to future versions (including 2.7.0). However, the lack of support for GWT Designer is causing us to hesitate. Looking through earlier threads ( https://groups.google.com/forum/#!search/gwt$20designer$20linux/google-plugin-eclipse/gWcCq0xenbk/8j0ZFlmgku8J ), it appears as if the initial open source repository for GWT Designer did not even build (as it was dependent on internal Google libraries/tools) and that maintaining support for Linux window managers was the primary pain point holding up development on GWT Designer. Would it be possible to at least get a working version for Eclipse on Windows? Somebody had mentioned setting up a crowdfunding campaign for GWT Designer, but it does not look like anything materialized. Would any of the original GWT Designer developers be open to setting up such a crowdfunding campaign? What would be the ongoing budget need to be? -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Google Web Toolkit" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to google-web-toolkit+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to google-web-toolkit@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/google-web-toolkit. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
