UI Components

[rohitpant]

Hi All:
I have a basic question about the default UI Roo generates. For whatever little I have seen there are basic UI components that it generates - how complex UI components it can generate ?

I am aware that it is not a UI code generator and I hope I am rite in assuming that - but still curious

Thanks
Rohit

[Ben Alex]

Roo's .jspx files use standard Spring and Spring JavaScript tags to emit the user interface. These typically include standard HTML elements, with progressive enhancement using JavaScript if the user has JavaScript enabled. This results in nicer controls like the calendar where available. Is that what you had in mind?

[rohitpant]

Hi Ben,
Thanks for your initial thoughts. Below is my situation and some more questions -

I have a team of engineers who are pretty good with Spring but now there is an upcoming project which is fairly complex and might demand writing complex UI components too. For example let's say a tree structure for showing a hierarchy OR an item selector (in my world it is called as an item selector - it is basically another window which pops up when you click on an icon which shows the details of another class for easy selection).

For example in your vote.roo project one to many mapping selection is shown by a drop down with some numbers on it - where as in real world we will need something more elegant.

I am still playing around with Roo but unable to come to a conclusion as I am not able to judge how much of UI it can develop for me altho I know it is just the basic UI that it generates for quick prototyping maybe . . .

I understand that the core business logic needs to be written by me but apart from that I think I am safe in assuming that the UI also needs to be re-written since customers generally don't approve simple wire frames when we prototype with them . . .


At the end of the day - Roo is fantastic but if I use Roo in my projects I need to -

1) Write my own application logic (no marks in guessing this )
2) Rewrite most of the UI - how much of work you think is this ?


I am not sure if I am making much sense but for what its worth above are my questions.

Thanks.

[Stefan Schmidt]

Hi Rohit,

1) Write my own application logic (no marks in guessing this )

Indeed, I suspect there is no tool out there which can actually write your business code for you . This is what keeps us employed after all. Roo will help you as much as possible to take care of the typical repetitive or boiler-plate code but if you need custom business logic you need to write it yourself. The good news is that your Java sources are free of a lot of clutter which allows you to focus on your business logic.

2) Rewrite most of the UI - how much of work you think is this ?

Yes, the scaffolded views will only get you so far. But maybe they offer you a good starting point for your customization? You could redo them from scratch but I think there is a lot of value in the existing setup / configurations. I would guess they can serve as a starting point for your own customizations.

Also, note that Roo 1.1 will contain some nice improvements to the view scaffolding and your customization options. It will be much easier to write your own view templates.