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  • Book Overview & Buying Backbase 4 RIA Development
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Backbase 4 RIA Development

Backbase 4 RIA Development

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Backbase 4 RIA Development

Backbase 4 RIA Development

5 (1)
Buy this Book

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