Re: Component Editor

From: John Huss (johnthus..mail.com)
Date: Thu Jul 17 2008 - 18:42:18 EDT

  • Next message: Lachlan Deck: "Re: Component Editor"

    Here's one:

    I don't know if its still the case, but before the default templates
    included log4j code, so if you created a project using the regular
    WOApplication template and created a model, you would get errors because
    log4j wasn't part of the classpath. So either log4j should be added to the
    classpath or the logging code should be removed from the templates.

    The other problem I see often is resources getting created in the wrong
    location, not in Components or Resources. Then the error messages you get
    at runtime are awful and don't give you any clue what you did wrong. The
    file creation wizards could make this a lot better.

    John

    On Thu, Jul 17, 2008 at 1:16 PM, David Avendasora <webobject..vendasora.com>
    wrote:

    >
    > On Jul 17, 2008, at 1:45 PM, Chuck Hill wrote:
    >
    >
    >> On Jul 17, 2008, at 8:36 AM, David Avendasora wrote:
    >>
    >> Hi Mike,
    >>>
    >>> Thanks again for going through all the stuff last night at the WONOVA
    >>> meeting. I really like getting the behind the scenes look at what could be
    >>> coming up with the dev tools.
    >>>
    >>> I'm copying this to the WOProject list because I think others may have
    >>> valuable input on this as well.
    >>>
    >>> Andrew Kinnie and I had a couple beers (I know, shocking)
    >>>
    >>
    >> Only shocking if you stopped at two.
    >>
    >
    > Well, by the time Mike stopped talking ... there wasn't much time for
    > drinking. I must remember that parallel is a much better strategy as
    > compared to serial for such activities. Especially when drinking beer is
    > involved, and really especially if you don't give Mike a time limit. Not
    > that I'm complaining! The lack of beer-drinking time was entirely my own
    > fault and Mike's demo/talk was fascinating. There's just no reason to choose
    > one over the other.
    >
    >
    >> after the meeting last night and we started discussing some of the stuff
    >>> you went over last night and your desire to make WOLips as
    >>> beginning-user-friendly as possible. We came up with a few things that,
    >>> from our perspective, are the confusing or daunting aspects of WO
    >>> development for the beginner.
    >>>
    >>> Now that the tools are getting much more polished in their look and feel,
    >>> the big barrier to WO-newbies is now becoming questions like "Which
    >>> EOGenerator should I use?" and "Do I want Apple or Wonder Inline Bindings?",
    >>> let alone "What the heck are Inline-bindings?". Right now, once a new
    >>> developer decides to use WebObjects they are faced with so many subsequent
    >>> questions that there is no way they can possibly have the answer to yet, and
    >>> no matter what they pick someone is going to suggest doing it differently.
    >>> On top of that, it's only getting more complicated with two different kinds
    >>> of AJAX soon to be available.
    >>>
    >>> We think there are a couple key things that could streamline this process
    >>> for WOnder applications.
    >>>
    >>> 1) Fully embrace WOnder in a WOnder App. Make the default setup of a
    >>> WOnder application implement click-to-open and as many of the other WOnder
    >>> technologies as possible right out of the starting-gate. If someone wants to
    >>> pick-and-choose the pieces of WOnder that they use, let them start with a
    >>> standard WO application and add things from there, or remove unwanted things
    >>> from the default WOnder app. Don't make the default a half-way thing!
    >>>
    >>
    >> +1
    >>
    >>
    >> 2) Hide the Binding Style form the beginner. Abstract the modification of
    >>> Components using a "projection" as you talked about last night. The editing
    >>> UI for editiing a Component would be the same for all tag styles (inline,
    >>> WOD or mixed) and WOLips would take care of making the modifications to the
    >>> HTML or WOD. You could always edit them directly with a text editor if
    >>> you're anal like that, but the default editor would completely hide where
    >>> the bindings are being written. A preference change could change where
    >>> bindings were written, but it wouldn't change the editing UI. This, combined
    >>> with the drag-and-drop binding functionality would make Component Editor
    >>> much less complicated for the beginner, but still allow the advanced
    >>> developer to do what they need to.
    >>>
    >>
    >> Not really sure what Mike is on about, but +1 anyway.
    >>
    >
    > The basic idea is that there is no reason a newbie developer even needs to
    > know how the bindings are stored, just how to set and modify them. The
    > actual storage of the bindings can be completely hidden by the way Eclipse
    > works.
    >
    > 3) Make the Bindings tab part of the WOLips perspective by default.
    >>>
    >>
    >> +1
    >>
    >> 4) (this one's mine, and I brought it up before but haven't yet added a
    >>> feature request for it) Watch what classes the focus is on in the .java
    >>> editor and instead of having the Related tab showing just the EOModel, have
    >>> it show and possibly make available for editing, the EOModel properties,
    >>> attributes and relationships, etc. for the selected class's entity, which
    >>> would help break the disconnect between the model and the class, and likely
    >>> greatly reduce the amount of times you need to actually open the whole model
    >>> (and therefor switch perspectives - which can be quite disturbing to Eclipse
    >>> newbies).
    >>>
    >>
    >> Interesting idea!
    >>
    >>
    >> What do other developers, especially beginners, think?
    >>>
    >>
    > Come on you beginner lurkers out there, I can hear your breathing.
    > Questions? Ideas?
    >
    >
    >>> After some discussion, I'll be happy to submit feature requests.
    >>>
    >>
    >>
    >> Not much discussion here! :-)
    >>
    >
    > I think I liked you better on coffee. You were more wordful.
    >
    > Dave
    >
    >



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