Developing Ajax Web Applications using ThinWire and Java Wichita KS

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Originally published at Internet.com

Java Programming Notes # 2500 * Preface * Building the Web Application * Preview * Discussion and Sample Code * The Web Application Named WebApp003 * The Web Application Named WebApp004 * The Web Application Named WebApp006 * The Web Application Named WebApp008 * Run the Program * Summary * Late Breaking Information * What's Next? * Complete Program Listings -----------------------------------

Preface

This is the first in a series of lessons designed to teach you how to develop rich web applications using ThinWire and Java.

What in the world is ThinWire?

I gave you a brief introduction to ThinWire in my earlier lesson entitled Deployment of Web Applications in Jakarta Apache Tomcat 5. In this, and subsequent lessons, I will teach you a great deal more about ThinWire.

Here is a quotation from the ThinWire web site that helps to explain what ThinWire is.

"ThinWire™ is a development framework that allows you to easily build applications for the web that look and feel like the desktop applications you're familiar with."

Partial list of interesting features

Here is an edited list of interesting features that I extracted from the ThinWire website. (Note that I used boldface to highlight some features that I find particularly interesting.) * Development framework for architecting Rich Internet Applications (RIA) that utilize Ajax techniques * Familiar event-driven GUI programming model * Develop exclusively in server-side language only * Never use HTML, CSS, or JavaScript again! * Program exclusively in Java! * Server-Side execution of all application logic * Rich Set of Complex Widget Components * Menu with image & shortcut-key support * Grid with multiple sortable columns * TextField & DropDown with real-time edit masking * Editable DropDown with multiple sortable columns * Tree control with image support * TabFolder with image support * Push buttons with images! * Content is sent incrementally and only when needed * All Major Browsers Supported * Deploy on any Java Servlet Container

What does this author think of the ThinWire framework?

For those who know how to write stand-alone, event-driven Java/OOP applications, this is the easiest way that I knoww of to develop rich web applications.

Why will I be hedging?

From time to time in this series of lessons, you may detect that I am unwilling to make a definitive statement about some ThinWire topic. I will sometimes use phrases line "I think" and "I believe that something or another is true.

My unwillingness to make a definitive statement about this or that will derive from the fact that many of the details regarding the ThinWire API have not yet been published. Much of what I will be telling you in this series of tutorials is based on what I have learned through experimentation.

ThinWire is very new

What I believe was the first announcement of the release of the technology appeared on the CCS website with a date of June 15, 2006. That announcement read as follows:

"6.15.2006 CCS announces the open source release of its new ThinWire(TM) technology.

This advanced new technology platform enables highly secure solutions within a zero footprint environment. The technology is now available for general use within any web based application under open source terms."

Somehow I stumbled onto that announcement, and was immediately impressed with the capabilities and the potential of the ThinWire framework. However, that was less than two months before the date on which I am writing this first tutorial lesson in the series, and there are some things that I am still unsure of.

An adventure into a new technology

If you join me in this ThinWire adventure, we will be plowing new ground until such time as the ThinWire documentation catches up with the ThinWire capability.

Normally, I wouldn't get involved with a new product at such an early stage in its development. Given that, my willingness to become deeply involved in the ThinWire framework technology is an indication of my extremely favorable impression of its capabilities.

Written exclusively in Java

As mentioned above, with ThinWire, all of the code for a web application is written exclusively in Java. You don't have to contend with JavaScript or HTML. Furthermore, you don't even have to contend with the complexity of Java servlets. The code is written like an event-driven standalone desktop application. All of the complexity of converting the application so that it will run as a server-side servlet-based web application is handled by the ThinWire framework.

Deploy on any Java Servlet Container

The last item in the above list of features is a double-edged sword. JavaHeads like me would argue that this is clearly a useful feature because it means that web applications developed using ThinWire can be deployed on a variety of competing servers from different vendors.

Critics, on the other hand, would probably turn the statement around and complain that a web application developed using