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We are developing enterprise business applications UI based on RCP. UI layer uses web services to connect to a J2EE backend and calls our services that take input and output in XML. As part of our UI infrastructure, we have a common library to bind values from XML (our model) to the UI controls by specifying data bindings (as XPath strings) at control level. We would like to see a way to specify multiple name- value String pairs that gets put into the widget using setData. Basically a setData editor (for String name-value pairs) within property editor. If we hand write the code in source editor it looks like this: Text txtOrderNo = new Text(pnlParent, SWT.BORDER); txtOrderNo.setData("yfc:DataType","OrderNo"); // our app has a common meta data repository for base and user defined data types txtOrderNo.setData("yfc:Binding","/Order/@OrderNo"); Of course we can do all these manually in source editor. But the whole point is that a visual designer should really try to eliminate the need to go back and forth between design and source mode to fix all these. I'd greatly appreciate your take on this.
Gili: This is a good idea (and we need it to fully support Essential Data as well). We use setData() in ED for exactly the same purpose as these guys are--to specify control-data bindings. Is this a 1.0 or a 1.1 feature, though? (Pramod, we're right about to declare feature freeze for 1.0 right now, so we've got to be careful about what we put in.) Thoughts?
This will require some work... for a beginner, we could not treat this as a 2-way "property", since we could only set it once (last value will be in the model).. where as, you will require a sequence of settings (diff. arguments) to the same "property" data. ... so what make sense here, is providing something like a method invokation support setFoo(args)., where once can contribute a context menu action ... but how will you visualizej the set of method invocations on the JavaBean View/FF if any?? Need some thinking
Gili, David Any update on this? We have started using VE 1.0 and it is working out very well. We still shift back and forth between source and editor for coding setData on controls. We ONLY need setData with String arguments. Is there a possibility of adding it to 1.1? Thanks. Regards, Pramod.
Reference this defect in the ve mailing list; there are a few options, with merits, flaws and effort level, be nice to get other's point of view. You can personally hard code a decoder to work with a fluffed up "data" property to deal with fact that data is not really a property. You can define the "data" to be a indexed property (we do not support index properties, but this will be a general JavaBean support)... as use it as such. We may have to provide generic support to method invokation for one to extend and use the semantics you need.
I looked at VE 1.0.1.1 and it's "data" property editor. But, that still does not solve my problem of associate String name-value pairs to widgets. I had posted on VE mailing list as you suggested and did not receive any serious response. Any update you guys can give me on this? Thanks.
The simplest manner to get this working for now is to use a JavaBean with all of your keys (e.g., Binding, DataType etc), and set the data to this bean. You could than use the PropertySheet to specify particular settings, or override the Data property editor to be a specialize one to deal with this new JavaBean.
