Gaijin Studio for Spring MVC 0.9.2 Released
The 0.9.2 release of Gaijin Studio for Eclipse is now available. It adds a number of features that were requested by the community and continues to refine the process of generating Spring MVC code from process flow metadata. The project is open source (LGPL) and may be downloaded at gaijin-studio.org.
Code:
Gaijin Studio Features
Gaijin Studio extends the Eclipse IDE to facilitate building applications based on
the Spring MVC framework. Gaijin provides process flow editors which allow an application
to be modeled visually and stored as metadata. Template-based code generators use the
metadata to generate much of the Spring configuration and implementation code. This greatly
reduces the amount of time needed to develop an application and allows detailed documentation
to be generated from the metadata.
Project Creation Wizard
(-) Creates Eclipse project structure for a Spring MVC project.
(-) Establishes classpath container for libraries expected on the application server classpath.
(-) Copies application libraries into project and adds them to the Eclipse project classpath.
(-) Generates web descriptor including Spring initializer listener/servlet and root context
configration.
(-) Generates simple Ant build script for building WAR based on project settings.
(-) Optionally, creates an empty applicationContext.xml file and maps the file into a Spring IDE
configuration set.
Editors
(-) Process flow editor allows for drag-and-drop creation of process flows that are translated
into Spring MVC application flows. A single process equates to a Spring dispatcher servlet
while the nodes within it represent Spring controllers. The process flow builder automatically
generates the code for a DispatcherServlet subclass, prototypes for the controllers, the
dispatcher configuration file, and the web.xml.
(-) Form editor allows forms to be designed graphically. Forms are composed of strongly-typed form
fields that are able to populate themselves from the request. Each form field is assigned a
converter that allows it to convert data from the request into its datatype. The Gaijin builder
automatically generates the form bean and internal details of the form.
(-) Form validator edtor creates Spring-compatible validators for Gaijin forms. Validators are
datatype-specific and may be chained for complex validation. Validation errors are made available
to the request in the standard location expected by Spring taglibs.
(-) Properties files are created for each process, form and validator and are updated automatically
from the editors. The files are merged into a reloadable message source registered in the Spring
dispatcher configuration file. Changes to messages such as form field names and validation
messages are reflected immediately in the application without restarting the server.
(-) Gaijin Studio is fully integrated with the Spring IDE plugins which are included in the standard
distribution. Spring IDE configuration sets are used to specify groups of config files for both
the root bean context and each dispatcher servlet bean context. When specifying bean references
in the controllers, the configuration sets provide context-sensitive lists of available beans
to choose from. The Spring IDE plugins also provide sytax highlighting of the config XML files
and a graphical view of bean relationships.
WFNM Integration
(-) WFNM is completely integrated with the Gaijin Studio DispatcherServlet subclass. No user code
is required to use the WFNM features. The required web descriptor entries and supporting libraries
are added automatically. Process flow entry and exit notification are automatic as well. Objects
added to the session within a Gaijin process are automatically re-claimed when the process is exited.
WFNM taglibs may be used to override or enhance the default behavior.
Any feedback would be appreciated!
Derek Adams
dadams (at) gaijin-studio.org