Re: [e4-dev] Java2Script's SWT in JavaScript

[Vineet Sinha <vineet@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Zhou,
I have been spending a significant amount of effort in moving a couple
of Eclipse based apps to the web. Our current progress has been on the
Flex side but seeing the Lombardi Blueprint demo we have become more
serious about pure HTML apps. From that perspective, it is great to
see more work in this area - and perhaps even making j2s have a home
at Eclipse.

But I do have some concerns and would appreciate details on these.

Most of the current work at Eclipse seems to be using GWT for the Java
to Javascript compiler. Do you see any way of merging the work, or
will developers have to give up GWT for benefiting from j2s? And what
are the benefits of j2s over GWT?

>From my experience with the Flex work - there are a couple of
challenges in bringing an already written Java app: the first is in
having a compiler and the second is in having the libraries ported.
Even though the flex work had its own compiler it benefitted from
GWT's implementations for some of the JRE libraries. Perhaps the best
solution might be to use the GWT compiler and j2s's libraries for swt
- does this sound possible? Would it be hard?

In the context of some of the external community work being done to
build on top of GWT, and Google's plans for GWT 2.0 - do you think it
would be hard to benefit from some of that tooling while using j2s?

Vineet


On Sun, Jun 21, 2009 at 1:57 PM, Zhou Renjian<zhourenjian@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> I am Zhou Renjian, Java2Script ( http://j2s.sourceforge.net/ ) project
> initial contributor.
>
> I am new with E4 and SWT/BE. After scanning through this mail list, "running
> desktop UI components in web environments" really interests me. I also learn
> from blog post that the goal of SWT/BE may be "SWT widgets cross compiled to
> Flex or Dojo".  And I agree with "this is one important reuse element of
> Eclipse being able to move to the web". I think Java2Script project may help
> for such a goal.
>
> Java2Script (J2S) provides an Eclipse Java to JavaScript compiler plugin and
> an implementation of JavaScript version of Eclipse Standard Widget Toolkit
> (SWT) with other common utilities, such as java.lang.* and java.util.*. You
> can convert your SWT-base Rich Client Platform (RCP) into Rich Internet
> Application (RIA) by Java2Script Pacemaker.
>
> Java2Script, similar to GWT, provides Java to JavaScript compiler and a
> client side UI widget library. Instead of providing a new UI library,
> Java2Scriprt supports SWT APIs from its starting point. So all existed SWT
> applications may be compiled by Java2Script and ran in modern browsers
> without or with little source modifications. If source modifications are
> needed, we provide @j2s* Javadoc and @J2S* annotation to keep native Java
> desktop version and web browser version compatiable. So one copy of *.java
> supports both desktop and web.
>
> Java2Script, started from 2005, already supports most of SWT controls. And
> JFace support is in its early stage. Please check out the demo:
> http://demo.java2script.org/ or http://demo.java2script.org/controls/ for
> more information. Java2Script's SWT is not optimized enough, and I must
> admit that it is a little slow in loading and running.
>
> And WeBuzz.IM ( http://webuzz.im/ ) is a running web IM service based on
> Java2Script technology and its JavaScript SWT library. You can check its
> screenshot of web browser version : http://webuzz.im/images/webuzz.im.jpg
> and native Java desktop version :
> http://webuzz.im/images/webuzz.im.desktop.jpg
>
> I know that SWT for Dojo may be under development. Some of these efforts may
> be overlapping with what J2S had already done for a long time. So this mail
> list may be interested in this Java2Script SWT implementation. And it should
> be a good idea for us to collaborate together.
>
> BTW: As Java2Script is licensed under EPL 1.0, if it can help SWT/BE, it is
> OK for us to contribute the sources to SWT/BE.
>
> Regards,
> Zhou Renjian
>
> --
> http://j2s.sourceforge.net/ Java2Script
>
>
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