Goutamdey.com:Web development blog from Kolkata(Calcutta),West-Bengal, India. » RIA and Java Enterprise Application Part-3

RIA and Java Enterprise Application Part-3

November 21st, 2006

Filed under: Articles, Java, Ajax, web2.0, RIA, Flex — Goutam Dey @ 1:01 pm

Enterprise App and Ajax

When implementing Ajax based RUI in enterprise app there are very few options to choose from;

Developing RIA from scratch
Plumping various RUI widgets available from open source community
FLEX (Flash Plug-in dependent) need FA-Bridge
Open Laszlo Flash based RICH UI (XUL based like Flex)

Developing from scratch makes no sense at all. Because time required developing various widgets it takes too much of time to deliver an enterprise ready version of it. Then an entire framework of Ajax engine makes no sense when too many well-tested versions are available (Dojo, prototype, DWR etc).

Readily available RUI widgets are available from various open source projects like YUI, Scriptaculous etc. But yes, you have to tweak here and there to develop your desired one.

Flex has many advantages over other two options. Because you get support from ADOBE itself, have large community and more of all you get a well tested IDE which is definitely a plus.

Flex has a Licensing cost which you have to consider beforehand like Backbase which has a readily available struts compatible tag-libraries which is rich enough to meet the enterprise requirements.

Open Laszlo is another good option to explore, it is an open source solution having two way supports, single declarative UI with flash or JS based RUI.

But again before starts with any of the options we should define the scope and analyze the expectation of the user, and accordingly go with best possible options available.

Struts and Ajax how to?

Struts itself has absolutely nothing in this area up to 1.2.x, Struts 2 is coming up in big way with the in built features of Ajax. (Webworks2.x).

Prior to Struts 2 you have to re-align your existing server side code base according to your plan of providing RUI solution. And in doing this DWR , dojo, scriptaculous can become very helpful if you are implementing JS based RUI. In case of Flex you probably have to re-align your server side code a little bit more. Though there are some open source helper toolkits available.

Flex and Js based solution both are surprisingly easy to integrate with struts. Both are Servlet based solution.

In JS based solution Struts Tiles can plays a major role in shortening your development time.

Ajaxanywhere Tag-library and Ajax-display tag can be very helpful, and there are some other open source tag-libraries to explore.