Contribution

[wondersonic]

Hello,
I would like to know how to contribute to the administration console.

I would like to help you for the HTML/Javascript/CSS/Servlet/JSP/Taglibs part of the console.

I've worked on a web application for 2 years and I can give you a login and a password to show you what I'm able to do.

JBoss really needs such an administration console, so I hope I could help.

Regards,
Loïc
e-mail: [e-mail]

[slaboure]

Hello Loïc,

your proposal is appreciated. As you can read it from the forums, the management part will be based, at least for the J2EE part, on the JSR-77 spec.

What do you use for front end? Tapestry, struts, pure jsps, etc.? What kind of interest do you have?

Cheers,


sacha

[wondersonic]

Hello Sacha,
For the front-end, I have used pure JSPs and servlets
with a proprietary API to build DHTML pages (I mean
HTML+Javascript+CSS) like SWING applications
(I've contributed to it too).

For the GUI, I've worked on the "dynamic" part of the application:
- menus,
- dialog box with client/server synchronization of events
using progress bar for example,
- i18n (31/12/2002 <-> 12/31/2002, 1.35 <-> 1,35...)
- compatibility between browsers:
- Internet Explorer (Windows, Macintosh) 5.0, 5.5, 6.0
- Netscape Navigator/Mozilla (Windows, Macintosh) 4.6X,
4.7X, 6.X, 7.X
- filter effects for Internet Explorer 5.0, 5.5/6.0
...

Currently, I'm working with struts on a new project at my office.

My interest to contribute comes from some reasons:
- the ability to retrieve informations from an
application server such as JBoss is very interesting
for administration: analyze the server, the web
applications (war and ear), to profile webapps...
- I like to create good GUIs (in DHTML)
try the following URL:
http://demo2.fivia.com/
login: read
password: only
Choose Menu Result, sub menu sales Rep., sub sub menu
REV.
Select start date: from January 1995
to add a lot of data, then submit the request. You
should see what I mean by (client/server
synchronization of events)
- and last but not least: I would like to contribute to
JBoss

I've started to read the JSR-77 specification.

Cheers,
Loïc

[wondersonic]

Hello,
Here is a little webapp to test the client/server synchronization:
url: http://<your host>/test/test

Cheers,
Loïc

[slaboure]

Hello Loïc,

Thank you for helping and welcome aboard.

OK, to build web pages, I think that would be great to have some "components" that we can easily reuse between pages as I think many pages will be very similar.

The term "component" is dependent on the framework we will use. I would personaly rather use one of those:
- tapestry (new release, with implicit definitions) because the component idea is really at the heart of the framework
- struts: because it is well known
- pure jsp/servlet/taglibs/whatever because it is simple for techies to modify existing pages without going through 25 files

I would like to hear your comments/idea on this.

Once we go for one of these, let's implement some components such as (just an idea):
- tracing component: allows to draw a curve (as a gif) of usage (load of a server for example) using some source data on the server
- style component: allows for pluggable styles (like CSS)
- MBean helper component/taglib (extension of the simple mbean I have provided) with support for remote nodes (clustering)
- tab component: allow to have several "tabs" on a page to split different configuration pages
- Wizzard basic component? to allow for wizard-based pages (deploy new bean for example)
- etc.

Once we have this, we can start implementing some test pages to see if we go in the good direction.

Cheers,



sacha

[wondersonic]

Hello Sacha,

I think too that "user-friendly-components" must be developped.

According to my experience, I can say that:
- tapestry is hard to use (julien viet used it for the forum...)
and I must tell that I don't know which version we could use.
There is a 2.2 which seems stable and a 2.3-rc1 and 2.4-alpha...
so: 0 / -1 (have to experiment myself)

- struts 1.02 is really cool to use but seems compatibility problems
may appear whith next releases (I have to read some docs...)
so: +1

- pure JSP: yes, JSP is a standard, and development may be really quick
must then provide taglibs to offer existing components
so: +1

- pure servlet: yes but I think we should provide something like AbstractServlet.java...
must provide components...
so: +1


Components:
- tracing component: good idea, applet? svg? gif +javascript interaction? flash? ;)

- style component: Should we predefine them or let anyone have its prefered webconsole style?
Netscape 6.X is managed like that (skins are essentially managed with CSS/javascript)

- MBean helper component/taglib...: YES!

- tab component: I've already managed something like that :)
(did you take a look at http://demo2.fivia.com/ login:"read", pass:"only" ?)

- Wizzard basic component: yes, deploying an ear or just a war is sometimes
really hard, but this is a big work!

Tell me what can I look to begin...

Cheers,
Loïc

[slaboure]

OK, my position is this one:

- Julien told Loïc and me that he was not positively impressed by Tapestry (too complex) but that he didn't took a look at the new 2.4 simplified features (Tapestry Lite).

- he prefers things such as webworks and proposed to look at Java Server Faces but he don't think there's a LGPL impl

- he said that if we want a component based framework (and not only MVC), there are not so many available except tapestry and WebObjects (Apple).

So my current bet is this one:
- let's do the components in Tapestry Lite 2.4 (still in alpha) and not 2.2
- if you don't like it or for very small things, let's go pure JSP/Taglibs.

And let's make the point in 6 weeks/2 months. If that's not good, we keep the code but wrap it in another framework, and you can freely insult me during two hours, top chrono.

Is there any allergy to the proposed plan? If yes, propose a (component-based) antidote.

Cheers,


sacha

[wondersonic]

Okay,
no antidote ;)

I've downloaded Tapestry 2.4-a2, I'm reading the
different documents to learn a little more Tapestry.

To make a point about Tapestry in 6w/2m: ok

Also okay to insult blablabla ;)

Well now, what is the plan, is there some docs to read
about the components needed?

I shall say, I haven't successfully compiled JBoss (jboss-head) with the web console (something about the beanshell packages). I'll retry this evening.

Tell me where we are going next :)

Open a new thread...

Waiting for request...

Loïc

[dominik]

hi guys,

I would like to help with the management module as well. Let me know what I can help with and where I should look at. I have a quick question regarding the decision to use Tapestry instead of something more popular, namely Struts? Is tapestry already used somewhere else in JBoss distribution? I just believe that keeping things as simple as possible is the way to go, even if it is the pure JSP tag library route:)

- Dominik

[thomasra]

We've had good experice in working with webwork, as it does a lot in terms of controller logic, as well as handle the VO edit/save stuff quite well. It does very little in terms of presentation, though, you still need to do the taglib stuff in order to handle "component" views.

However, the form-generation that essentially needs to be done is quite good in webwork.

thomas