RAP at Ganymede Democamps near you

The Ganymede Release Train is about to arrive (or leave?) on June 25th 2008 and RAP 1.1 is on-board along with 22 other projects.

The busy weeks of pre-release polishing, bug fixing and stress-testing lie behind us. Now is the time talk about what's new in this release, meet other Eclipse enthusiasts and even celebrate a little.

If you want to learn more about RAP 1.1 join us at one of the following DemoCamps:

* DemoCamp Portland, June 24th (download slides here)
* DemoCamp Karlsruhe, June 26th

Additional RAP Demos by the community are/were sheduled for:

* DemoCamp Sofia, June 21st
* DemoCamp Szeged, June 26th

Have fun,
Elias.

Image: (c) Copyright 2007, c4d/Photocase.de

PresentationFactory for RAP

As Neil pointed out in Having fun with RAP and OSGi there is a challenge for us rappers: Provide a look & feel of RAP applications suitable for the web. We do not claim that we are completely there, but introducing the PresentationFactory is a big step forward.



You now no longer depend on our design capabilities, just do it yourself. And to help you get started we created a mockup presentation as part of the rap demo that comes with M4. We have recently been talking to a company that does user interface design for a couple of famous customers and they offered to help with UI and interaction design. I am very much looking forward to work with those guys.

The latest RAP 1.1 M4 build provides a couple of more interesting new things: We have been moving to the 3.4 code base and created some tooling to enable PDE jUnit style testing. We are even using the original tests from JFace / Platform. See the New and Noteworthy for details and more interesting new stuff.

Eclipse RAP 1.1 M3 released

The RAP team just announced the availability of RAP 1.1 M3.

Some new things in this release:

UI

• Mouse Events - Controls will notify mouse listeners on mouse up, down and double-click events.
• Theming Variants - Define multiple theming styles for the for the same widget type. Want blue buttons and green buttons? Now you can do it.
• Background Images - You can now use a background image on most controls.
  
• Transparency - Semi-transparent Shells (#get/setAlpha()).
• Activities - Control the visibility of certain UI elements in the Workbench using the familiar activities and activitySupport extension points.
• Import and Export Wizards - Support for registering and showing import and export wizards.
  

Core

• User Specific Settings - RWT provides API for persisting session- and/or user-specific settings. Refer to ISettingStore for details.
  
• User Specific Preferences - You can now use AbtractUIPlugin.getPreferenceStore() to save and retrieve user-specific preferences. The user is identified by a cookie and will have access to the same preferences as long as the cookie is valid.
• RAP HttpContext - The RAP servlet uses its own HttpContext. This allows easier sharing of session data between the RAP Servlet and other servlets in the same context.
  

Here are the links to the release announcement and the complete new & noteworthy.

Image: (c) Copyright 2005, flowin2/Photocase.de

Web-enabled Draw2D in RAP?

My colleagues from the RAP Team have created proof-of-concept implementation of a web-enabled Draw2D port. This could eventually allow you to port existing graphical applications based on the GEF/Draw2D frameworks to the web.



Click here to watch the video.


So will this be available as part of Eclipse RAP soon?

No, this work was intended as a feasibility study. At this point we are looking for parties that are interested in using and productizing this technology.

Regards,
Elias.

Would you believe this is a browser based Application?

Here are two amazing screenshots from a RAP-based application which was unveiled earlier this month. The team at CAS Software launched a hosted CRM solution based on RAP. They did a great job of customizing and polishing the RAP UI to create a unique look-and-feel.

Calendar View



The calendar supports drag-drop, transparency and instant input (click-and-type).


Contacts Details



This is screen shot of the contact details view. Note the cool "button bar" at the top.


Do you develop a RAP-based software and would like to share a screenshot? Write me an email or meet me during the EclipseCon.

Regards,
Elias.

Images: (c) Copyright 2008, CAS Software AG. All rights reserved.

Getting started with the RAP Calculator Example

Below are some brief instructions on how to import and run the RAP Calculator Example, which I currently use in my talks.

Special thanks to all of you who attended my recent talks at the Salem Java User Group (download the slides) and the Seattle Code Camp.


Installation Instructions

Note: the example needs RAP 1.1 M1 or newer. It will not work with RAP 1.0.

1. To install RAP and launch a demo application, visit this screencast. Total running time is approx. 3 minutes.
   
   
2. To install the Calculator Example download the file 'calc.ui.rap.zip'.
   
   
3. To import the sources from 'calc.ui.rap.zip' follow these instructions.
   
   You should now have the 'calc.ui.rap' project in your workspace. If you've compile errors make sure you are using a RAP 1.1 M1 (or newer).
   
   
4. To run the calculator you can use the supplied launch configuration:
   
   
   • Expand the 'calc.ui.rap' project
   • Select 'Calculator Example.launch'. Right click > Run As > Calculator Example
     
   • You should see the Calculator-App, similar to the screenshot below.
     
     

If you get stuck, please leave a comment.

Have fun with RAP,
Elias.

RAP "Guide" to the EclipseCon 2008

Just two weeks to go 'til the next EclipseCon. Once again the schedule is packed with ten parallel sessions and a dazzling amount of interesting talks.

The list below will help you spot the RAP-specific talks and tutorials.



Monday, March 17th

• Tutorial - Getting started with RAP development, 08:00-10:00, Cypress
• Tutorial - From RCP to RCP/RAP. Conversion and Single-Sourcing Techniques, 10:30-12:30, Cypress

Wednesday, March 19th

• RAP vs GWT - Which AJAX Technology is for You?, 13:30-14:20, Grand Ballroom GHAB
• RAP the Web, 14:30-15:20, Grand Ballroom GHAB

As you know, RAP is one of the runtime technologies that are part of the newly proposed Runtime Top-Level Project. If you are interested in the "broader picture" you may find these two talks interesting:

• The Equinox Community -- Runtime Technology at Eclipse, Tue 03/18, 11:10-12:00, Great America Ballroom JK
  
• Eclipse 4.0, Wed 3/19, 10:10-11:00, Grand Ballroom GHAB
  

Regards,
Elias.