Re: [e4-dev] how to contribute to toolkit model ?

[yves.yang@xxxxxxxxxxx]

Sorry, too quick to click on the button "send":
  Can you use it on Mars or Moon?

yves
>> I suppose you have a car, by which you can go anywhere (on land of
>> course). Can you use it as a boat in ocean ?
> Better question is:
>   Can you use it as a boat on Mars or Moon?
>
> yves
>> Hallvard,
>>
>>>
>>> I've worked a lot with XML-based UI representations and have looked at
>>> most of the languages that exist, and I've contributed scripting and
>>> editing tools to XSWT. XSWT is almost equivalent to XWT, by providing a
>>> direct mapping to SWT (no abstraction). The general problems of XSWT
>>> were twofold:
>>> 1) By being a direct mapping to SWT, it didn't really make things
>>> simpler, as you both had to understand SWT and the mapping technique
>>> (which became complex to support all aspects of SWT).
>>> 2) Working with XML is perhaps OK if you're editing it as a file, but
>>> when you must manipulate the XML DOM in an application, e.g. for
>>> changing the UI during runtime or building the XML document from some
>>> other representation, it becomes cumbersome. This is partly because of
>>> XML's weak, untyped structure, partly because of the complexity of the
>>> mapping to SWT, which to some extent is reflected in the application's
>>> code.
>>
>> I just remind you XAML ueses the similar concept as XSWT. But it is much
>> more complet, mature and model-based (see below about its definition).
>> It
>> is designed for application description (A = application) including
>> workflow. The UI is just one part of its application domains. So XSWT is
>> not comparable with XWT.
>>
>> I suggest you to look at XAML in .Net/Siverlight. You will discovery a
>> new
>> continent as you did with EMF (I suppose).
>>
>>>
>>> So the problem was not that there is no standard for XML-based
>>> declarative UI,
>>
>> Yes, but there is a standard in .Net/Silverlight. Why do use the
>> specification in eclipse? How long do you take to reinvent it? How much
>> the risk for eclipse?
>>
>>> but intrinsic problems with XML and the mapping to SWT.
>>>
>>
>> XWT has resolved it.
>>
>>> For me the solution was to reuse the good ideas from XSWT in an
>>> EMF-based solution. I was about to take Wazaabi
>>> (http://www.wazaabi.org/index.php?title=Main_Page) as the starting
>>> point, but since I wanted to better understand the implementation
>>> issues
>>> and instead started on TM.
>>>
>>> A weakness of a model-based solution seems to be that you have to model
>>> all the widgets you want to use in advance, while in X(S)WT you can
>>> just
>>> use the name of the widget class as a tag and you get what you want.
>>> However, it's easy to use the same reflection techniques as XWT uses,
>>> to
>>> generate the EMF-based model, since EMF supports dynamically creating
>>> classes and instances.
>>
>> Please take care of the word "model-based". I make the difference
>> between
>> "model-based" and EMF-based. "model-based" UI is generic concept.
>> EMF-based UI is concrete. XWT is "model-based" since it has a SWT model,
>> but XSWT is not.
>>
>> As I said before, the weaknesses of EMF-based UI are the extensibility
>> and
>> flexibility. They are much more important.
>>
>>>
>>> As I've argued before, an important strength of an EMF-based
>>> representation is how well UI model instances can be managed by
>>> existing
>>> (and future) Eclipse tools. (EMF is almost becoming a native Eclipse
>>> object model, now.)
>>>
>> I suppose you have a car, by which you can go anywhere (on land of
>> course). Can you use it as a boat in ocean ?
>>
>> Yves
>>> Hallvard
>>>
>>> yves.yang@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
>>>>
>>>> A declarative UI is very important for e4 to simple UI development for
>>>> enterprise SI presentation. It provides a separation between concept
>>>> and
>>>> implementation, and unify all UI frameworks and data frameworks
>>>> (including
>>>> EMF) to work together. It should be the foundation of eclipse for all
>>>> UI
>>>> Tools such as VE, MDA like PMF/EGF. So the standardization of
>>>> declarative
>>>> UI in e4 is absolutly necessary for the success of e4.
>>>>
>>>> Without this standard, it will be a masse. We are already in this
>>>> situation in Java. There are XUL, Xform, XSWT and others, but no
>>>> standard.
>>>> Who dare to use it? Which tool support it?
>>>>
>>>> Best regards
>>>> Yves YANG
>>>>> EMF seem higher level technology than XML. EMF provide many advanced
>>>>> tools
>>>>> to solve the actual world's problem. A XML file is a data
>>>>> aggregation.
>>>>> But,
>>>>> it is simple to understand. However  parsing many XMLs or one big XML
>>>>> is
>>>>> not
>>>>> lightweight absolutely. And so I don't much like the idea of "XML
>>>>> Everywhere". But, One question is that, is it possible to make all
>>>>> additional technologies as the options for e4? we don't need be
>>>>> forced
>>>>> to
>>>>> choose one specific technology?
>>>>> best regards,
>>>>> Jin Mingjian
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> e4-dev mailing list
>>>>> e4-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx
>>>>> https://dev.eclipse.org/mailman/listinfo/e4-dev
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
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>>>
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>>
>>
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