Book Image

Backbase 4 RIA Development

Book Image

Backbase 4 RIA Development

Overview of this book

Backbase is a very powerful and complex JavaScript library, with many user interface components to help make web development easier. It allows the development of Rich Internet Applications (RIA) that run within all major browsers but its powers and complexity mean that the choice of component can be overwhelming. Understanding when and how to use the right component might not always be straightforward. This book makes that easier. This is a practical book that teaches you how to use the Backbase Client Framework effectively, with a complete overview and many examples. A core developer of the framework puts the technologies used into a wider perspective of existing web standards and a seasoned software architect explains why XML-based UI definition produces better web applications. The transparent use of AJAX technologies, for example to submit forms, or to retrieve updates for data grids, can be taken for granted with the Backbase framework. Packed with examples, the book shows you how to get the most from the library of UI components, and then extend the library with its own custom language. With this book in hand, it is easy to enable AJAX within your web application. You will be able to use the Backbase framework effectively, from basic applications to complex, custom-defined UI components. This book contains a complete overview of all the UI libraries available within the Backbase framework and shows examples for each element described. The Backbase framework offers an innovative Tag Definition Language (TDL), which allows developers to create new UI components that can be used as XML elements, in the same way as using the built-in GUI library. Using TDL brings considerable development advantages, and this book explains how. Significant attention is also given to architectural aspects of designing a web-application, showing sample applications using a model-view-controller approach.

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Backbase 4 RIA Development
Dec, 2009 | 488 pages
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Table of Contents (16 chapters)
Backbase 4 RIA Development
Backbase 4 RIA Development
Credits
Credits
About the Authors
About the Authors
About the Reviewers
About the Reviewers
Preface
Preface
Free Chapter
1
Hello Backbase!
Hello Backbase!
What is Backbase?
The Backbase Explorer
Setting up a web development environment
Download the Backbase framework
The Backbase page skeleton
"Hello Backbase" in four variations
XML and namespaces
A basic page layout
Summary
2
User Interface Development
User Interface Development
Squaring the circles of web applications
The Backbase Reference
UI markup languages
XHTML
The Backbase Tag Library
The BTL abstract elements
The layout widgets
Styling techniques for GUI widgets
A BTL Exerciser
Summary
3
Writing the Application Logic
Writing the Application Logic
The application programming model
Overview of the Backbase APIs
Events
Backbase utility functions
The Backbase XML Execution Language (XEL)
XPath
Commands to manipulate the DOM or elements
Info and Notify BTL widgets
A Backbase Command Exerciser
Summary
4
Client-server Communication and Forms
Client-server Communication and Forms
AJAX
Asynchronous communication
Working with forms
AJAX and architecture
The C3D travel blog site
Summary
5
Data-bound Widgets
Data-bound Widgets
Why is data binding important?
Data-binding fundamentals
Make an HTML element data bound
The data-bound widgets
Continue the development of the C3D application
Summary
6
More Dynamic Behavior
More Dynamic Behavior
Behaviors
Commands for the behaviors
Broadcaster/observer
Animating the UI
Summary
7
Creating UI Components
Creating UI Components
Component models and technologies
Introduction to the Tag Definition Language (TDL)
Simple widgets
Widget event handling
Widgets as objects
Behaviors
Uses
The limits of creating UI components
Summary
8
Widget Wrap-up
Widget Wrap-up
Action and menu widgets
Data-bound menus
Windows and dialogs
Multimedia widgets
An example with menus and windows
Miscellaneous commands
Summary
9
Debugging, Optimization, and Deployment
Debugging, Optimization, and Deployment
Debugging
The Backbase debugger
Application optimization
The TDL Optimizer
Deployment on a server
Summary
10
Framework Comparison
Framework Comparison
The landscape of client-side technologies
Backbase and other client-side GUI frameworks
An integration example
AJAX toolkit reference
Summary
11
The Square Web Application
The Square Web Application
What is a square web application?
Complete the C3D example
Usability aspects
What will the future bring?
A square puzzle
Summary

About the Authors

Ghica van Emde Boas is an independent IT Consultant. She was employed by IBM in the Netherlands for 30 years as a relational database developer, as an IT Architect, and as a Java developer involved with the largest Java framework ever written—the IBM SanFrancisco Framework. She has been taking part in the development of object-oriented methodologies within IBM. She has been teaching these at IBM's Object Technology University in Belgium and the USA.

Ghica has co-organized several workshops on Generative Model Transformations at OOPSLA (Object-oriented Programming, Systems, Languages, and Applications) conferences, the place where it all happened: objects, design patterns, modeling wars (UML), eXtreme programming, and Agile development. She now specializes in PHP, MySQL, and web application development. She helped write the client framework documentation for Backbase.

Ghica has written two books in Dutch about PHP and MySQL for Pearson Education, and has contributed considerably to the Dutch translation of "Foundations of Ajax", by Ryan Asleson and Nathaniel T. Schutta, Apress. While at IBM, Ghica participated in writing two Redbooks and published two articles, one in the IBM Journal of Research and Development and the other in the IBM Systems Journal.

Ghica lives and works in the Netherlands. She is married and has three children. She likes rowing on the Spaarne River.

First of all, I would like to thank Dimitra Retsina, Jouk Pleiter, and Gerbert Kaandorp from Backbase for their enthusiasm about this book-writing project and for supporting me by allowing access to all information about the Backbase framework that I needed.

Sergey Ilinsky deserves my gratitude for his spontaneous offer to be a co-author and for the fierce discussions we had, which were always interesting.

Without the help of the R&D crew at Backbase, this book would contain a lot more errors and fewer examples. Thanks!

The Planning & Scores group at the ROC Eindhoven (a very large school in the Netherlands) helped me by developing widgets that I could use in the sample application, while Geert Broekmans wrote the PHP database framework used in the sample application of the book.

I am truly grateful for the help and useful comments from the reviewers and the staff at Packt Publishing.

Of course writing this book would not have been possible without the ongoing support for my information technology related adventures, from my husband, Peter.

Sergey Ilinsky is a senior UI engineer at Nedstat BV and a Tech Lead for an open source project at Clientside OY. He has worked for Backbase for three years, evangelizing open-standards based software development, while engineering and developing core parts of the Backbase Client Framework.

Having been heavily involved with client-side development since 2003, he became an expert in many standard and proprietary web technologies. He is also a contributor to some of the modern web-related specifications. Sergey can frequently be found on AJAX or client-side technology related forums, or he can be met at international developers' conferences where he occasionally gives talks.

I would like to thank Backbase for the opportunity they gave me to work and improve on this beautiful piece of software—the Backbase Ajax Client Framework—and later for letting me join the project of writing this book.

Thanks to Ghica van Emde Boas, the main writer of the book, who I had the pleasure to work with and who never sent me a third email reminder whenever I delayed my part.

Thanks to the staff of Packt Publishing involved in this book project.

I would like to express special gratitude to my girlfriend, Elena O., for her tolerance and ongoing support.

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