pavelgj was Here

Bing vs. Google

2009-07-09T16:06:00.001-07:00

Came across this interesting Bing vs. Google tool. Must say, I was pleasantly surprised by the consistency of results and opinions.

GWT RemoteServiceServlet + Guice = GuiceRemoteServiceServlet

2008-02-01T10:29:00.000-08:00

If you use Guice and GWT you'll probably find this handy:
GuiceRemoteServiceServlet is a wrapper servlet for GWT RPC utilizing Guice for managing RemoteService implementation object's lifecycle.

<servlet>
   <servlet-name>GWT-RPCServlet</servlet-name>
    <servlet-class>com.gc.gwt.server.GuiceRemoteServiceServlet</servlet-class>
   <init-param>
       <param-name>guice.module</param-name>
       <param-value>com.test.guice.MyGuiceModule</param-value>
   </init-param>
</servlet>

<servlet-mapping>
   <servlet-name>GWT-RPCServlet</servlet-name>
   <url-pattern>/GWT.rpc</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>

map all you remote service implementations in Guice Module
define and map GuiceRemoteServiceServlet as shown above
point ALL services to the same /GWT.rpc

The source for the GuiceRemoteServiceServlet can be found here.

Good luck.

PS: GuiceRemoteServiceServlet depends on Guice and apache-commons beanutils.

PS2: The source of GuiceRemoteServiceServlet is distributed under Apache 2.0 License.

MS Volta is doomed I tell you... doooooo-o-o-o-oomed!!!

2007-12-10T15:24:00.000-08:00

Not that I care about any of the MS technology, but the simple reason for such dramatic subject is this screenshot (I took it myself):

This is the simplest sample application: http://labs.live.com/volta/samples/Quickstart.html
135 requests, 2.29MB download (only 56KB from cache), it took 31.67 seconds, FF said "Not Responding" while it was loading and I've been loading it for the third time.

They're not going to get out the sandbox with that attitude.

The Eclipse Integration for Apache Maven (IAM)

2007-11-26T07:47:00.000-08:00

The biggest obstacle for using Maven full time at work or my open-source projects was the absence of reasonable IDE support. There is an eclipse Maven plugin available, but it has some significant issues (I won't go into details):
http://maven.apache.org/eclipse-plugin.html

And finally, Eclipse will have "native" maven support!!!
http://www.eclipse.org/proposals/iam/

Eclipse IAM - The Eclipse Integration for Apache Maven proposal was approved. So, this time next year (according to the tentative time line) we'll be able to, hopefully, efficiently use maven from within eclipse.

1 day down, 364 to go...

What's up with Firefox?

2007-10-30T11:03:00.000-07:00

Just take a look at that memory usage:

And the Firefox window in question is this:

Yes, I did work with some resource intensive pages, but I've closed them all. So, what's up with Firefox?

Nice GWT Tree: Part 2

2007-10-15T10:44:00.000-07:00

This is my second attempt to introduce lines in GWT Tree. This a very rough version: download patch (for the 1.4.60 tag).

Basic usage:

// Create a tree with a few items in it.
TreeItem root1 = new TreeItem("root 1");
root1.addItem("item0");
root1.addItem("item1");
root1.addItem("item2");

TreeItem subItem1 = new TreeItem("sub item 1");
subItem1.addItem("item0");
subItem1.addItem("item1");
subItem1.addItem("item2");

root1.addItem(subItem1);
root1.addItem("item3");
TreeItem subItem2 = new TreeItem("sub item 1");
subItem2.addItem("item0");
subItem2.addItem("item1");
subItem2.addItem("item2");

// Add a CheckBox to the tree
TreeItem item = new TreeItem(new CheckBox("item3"));
root1.addItem(item);

root1.addItem(subItem2);

TreeItem root2 = new TreeItem("root 2");
root2.addItem("item0");
root2.addItem("item1");
root2.addItem("item2");

Tree t = new Tree((TreeImages) GWT.create(TreeLinedImages.class));
t.addItem(root1);
t.addItem(root2);

// Add it to the root panel.
RootPanel.get().add(t);

interface TreeLinedImages extends TreeImages {

/**
* @gwt.resource treeOpenLined.gif
*/
AbstractImagePrototype treeOpen();

/**
* @gwt.resource treeClosedLined.gif
*/
AbstractImagePrototype treeClosed();

/**
* @gwt.resource treeLeafLined.gif
*/
AbstractImagePrototype treeLeaf();
}

CSS:

.gwt-TreeItem {
}

.gwt-TreeItem-selected {
background-color: #3169C6;
}

.gwt-TreeItemTable {
padding: 0px;
margin: 0px;
border-collapse: collapse;
}

.gwt-TreeItemTable tbody, .gwt-TreeItemTable td, .gwt-TreeItemTable tr, .gwt-TreeItemTable th {
padding: 0px;
margin: 0px;
}

.gwt-TreeItem-Nested {
margin: 0px;
padding: 0px;
}

.gwt-TreeItemTdImg {
border: 0px;
padding: 0px;
margin: 0px;
background: transparent url("tree_connect_tb.gif") repeat-y 7px top;
}

.gwt-TreeItemTdImgLast {
border: 0px;
padding: 0px;
margin: 0px;
}

.gwt-TreeItemChildSpan {
margin: 0px;
background: transparent url("tree_connect_tb.gif") repeat-y 7px top;
}

.gwt-TreeItemChildSpanLast {
}

And you should see something like this:

You'll also need to include tree.css and the images from the zip file.

Good luck.

GWT-Ext (GWT wrapper for ExtJS) - the bug fixing adventure

2007-10-09T08:46:00.000-07:00

Recently I started playing around with ExtJS — it is agruably (vs. Dojo) the best integrated JavaScript widget library. I was also pleased to learn that there is a GWT wrapper library out in the wild, i.e. GWT-Ext. But (there is always a "but") I quickly learned that it's not all flowers — none of the key Drag&Drop features were implemented in gwtext-0.9.1. So I had to go back to writing all that nasty JavaScript by hand.

Shortly after, gwtext-0.9.2 was released and I was pleased to learn that tree Drag&Drop support was added, but (obviously) some key events were missing, like "move" and "nodedaragover" wasn't returning the crucial boolean (to indicate wheather to allow drop on the target node). And then I decided that instead of filing a bug report and waiting for it to be considered from a pile of other bugs and enhancement requests I'd rather fix it myself and just share a patch. And that's what I did. It took me a couple of hours to figure out a fix and 30 seconds to send a patch... and to my surprise it took only a couple of days for my fix to be included in the trunk. It saved me a lot of grieve of trying to maintain my own fixed version.

Here is a link to the discussion on the GWT-Ext developers forum.

I guess the moral of this story is that if you find a bug, don't rush to file that bug report... try to spend a few minutes to figure it out yourself. It will:

give you an opportunity to learn the product/library/framework,
allow you to narrow down the scope of the problem,
give you better understanding of the circumstances that lead to the failure,
give you valuable knowledge that will allow you to write a bug report that will include more of the much needed details.

Ultimately it will directly reflect on the time spent to fix the problem.

That's one small step for Dell, one giant leap for linuxkind

2007-05-30T09:48:00.000-07:00

"By popular demand Ubuntu has arrived" says Dell(US) website.

Let hope others (cough-HP-cough) will follow this great example.

GWT compile Ant macro

2007-02-15T12:52:00.000-08:00

I've recently shared this approach of implementing ant GWT compile macro on GWT mailing list. Thought I'd share it here too. Here it is:

  <target name="gwt-compile">
    <gwtCompile module="com.test.MyModule1" classpathref="gwt.compile.class.path"/>
    <gwtCompile module="com.test.MyModule2" output="www/module2/"/>
    <gwtCompile module="com.test.MyModule3" classpathref="gwt.module3.compile.class.path" output="www/module3/"/>
  </target>

  <path id="gwt.compile.class.path">
    <pathelement location="src/" />

    <pathelement path="${gwt.jar.user}" />
    <pathelement path="${gwt.jar.dev}" />
  </path>

  <path id="gwt.module3.compile.class.path">
    <pathelement location="src/" />

    <pathelement path="${gwt.jar.user}" />
    <pathelement path="${gwt.jar.dev}" />
    <pathelement path="libs/gwtWidgetsLibrary.jar" />
  </path>

  <macrodef name="gwtCompile">
    <attribute name="module" />
    <attribute name="classpathref" default="gwt.compile.class.path"/>
    <attribute name="output" default="www/"/>
    <sequential>
      <java classpathref="@{classpathref}" classname="com.google.gwt.dev.GWTCompiler" fork="true">
        <arg value="-out" />
        <arg value="@{output}" />
        <arg value="@{module}" />
      </java>
    </sequential>
  </macrodef>

Inside GWT experience: Tree/TreeItem

2007-01-22T07:19:00.000-08:00

Recently (or more like a couple of weeks ago) I've been looking around for other ways to contribute to Google Web Toolkit project aside from Rich-Text Editor project. The one thing that caught my eye was the Look&Feel of the Tree Widget... Many other frameworks have done a great job making the tree look more like standard tree in Swing, GTK, etc. So I took a couple of hours to tweak it bit, and here is how I made it look:
Interested? You can apply the patch (for TreeItem class) and additional images (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) and try it out.

PS: It seems GWT project is going though a lot of big-picture changes right now, so it's not very easy to pass such a simple patch. Here is the discussion on the GWT Contributors forum.

Safari experience: selection range

2007-01-11T08:03:00.000-08:00

I just had so far the most painful experience with Safari -- trying to figure out the Safari support for this spec:
http://www.w3.org/TR/DOM-Level-2-Traversal-Range/ranges.html

Turned out it was very limited to the point that it didn't make sense, ex. you can create the range (createRange()) but you cannot apply/add it because Selection.addRange(newRange) method does not exist...

I just want to be able to save current selection and then be able to restore it at a later time. I need that because Safari (as well as IE, but to Safari extent) looses selection when the focus is lost off the element (IFrame in my case). Long story short here is a working Safari version:

To save:

  var oWin = oIframe.contentWindow;
  var oDoc = oWin.document;
  var sel = oWin.getSelection();

  oDoc._previous_range = new Object();
  oDoc._previous_range.baseNode = sel.baseNode;
  oDoc._previous_range.baseOffset = sel.baseOffset;
  oDoc._previous_range.extentNode = sel.extentNode;
  oDoc._previous_range.extentOffset = sel.extentOffset;

To restore:

  var oWin = oIframe.contentWindow;
  var oDoc = oWin.document;
  var sel = oWin.getSelection();
  sel.setBaseAndExtent(oDoc._previous_range.baseNode,
                       oDoc._previous_range.baseOffset,
                       oDoc._previous_range.extentNode,
                       oDoc._previous_range.extentOffset);

QuickWCM project moved

2007-01-08T08:40:00.000-08:00

QuickWCM project moved to Google Code.
http://code.google.com/p/quickwcm/

Google Code proved to be a bit more comfortable at this point. I'll be committing the source code over the next couple of days.

GWT SplitPane - dev release

2007-01-05T14:48:00.000-08:00

I've been working on an SplitPane Widget for GWT, it's still in dev progress and a bit buggy on Opera and very sensitive to DOCTYPE, but you can still try it.
You can get it from the source of gwt-html-editor project:
http://code.google.com/p/gwt-html-editor/source

Follow these instructions to run the sample and build the latest jar:
http://gwt-html-editor.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/README.txt

See inside gwt-html-editor/test/com/jpavel/gwt/wysiwyg/test/* for more details.

GWT Rich Text Editor 0.1.2 is available

2007-01-02T15:47:00.000-08:00

Version 0.1.2 is now available for downloads:
http://gwt-html-editor.googlecode.com/files/editor-0.1.2-preview.jar

The release includes bug fixes and some API changes.

Also, source code has been restructured. Ant build.xml file has been added that can compile and build jar file, GWT-compile and run GWT shell for sample/test application.
Refer to README.txt file for more details.
http://gwt-html-editor.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/README.txt

I'm still looking into Safari support. The current version is marked as preview, but is pretty stable. I just don't want to make a final release until Safari is supported.

GWT Rich Text Editor Widget Preview Release 0.1

2006-12-18T14:49:00.000-08:00

Announcing GWT Rich Text Editor Widget Preview Release 0.1

http://code.google.com/p/gwt-html-editor/

check out the Getting Started wiki page for installation and usage instructions.

Waiting for bug reports. ;)

New GWT Tutorials

2006-12-13T13:13:00.000-08:00

I've published a couple of more GWT Tutorials:

PS: I've also made a couple of changes to the Rich Text Editor.

Update: GWT Rich Text Editor commit

2006-11-30T15:01:00.000-08:00

I committed the latest update of the Rich Text Editor Widget. The update includes ability to use custom widgets for data entry like urls, colors, etc.

http://code.google.com/p/gwt-html-editor/

Here is the code demonstrating actual "create link" button:

EditorToolbarButton link
= new EditorToolbarButton(EditorToolbarButton.BUTTON_LINK);

link.addClickListener(new ClickListener() {
public void onClick(Widget sender) {

final EditorPromptPanelWidget customWidget
= new EditorPromptPanelWidget();
VerticalPanel container = new VerticalPanel();
final TextBox urlTextBox = new TextBox();

HorizontalPanel hz = new HorizontalPanel();
hz.add(new Label("Link URL: "));
hz.add(urlTextBox);
container.add(hz);

HorizontalPanel hzButtons = new HorizontalPanel();
Button b = new Button("Create Link");
b.addClickListener(new ClickListener() {
public void onClick(Widget sender) {
customWidget.getPrompt().complete(urlTextBox.getText());
}
});

Button c = new Button("Cancel");
c.addClickListener(new ClickListener() {
public void onClick(Widget sender) {
customWidget.getPrompt().complete(null);
}
});

hzButtons.add(b);
hzButtons.add(c);

container.add(hzButtons);

customWidget.setWidget(container);

new AdvancedPromptPannel("CreateLink", "Create Link", customWidget);

urlTextBox.setFocus(true);
}
});

And this is what it looks like:

Here is the compiled version if you would like to see it in action:

http://pavelgj.googlepages.com/www.zip

And source (if you don't want to go through SVN):

http://pavelgj.googlepages.com/src.zip

Enjoy! :)

GWT WYSIWYG HTML (Rich Text) Editor Widget

2006-11-29T10:47:00.000-08:00

This is a simple but sufficient for most cases WYSIWYG HTML (Rich Text) Editor fully (99% + JSNI) implemented with GWT.

I just created a new project and committed the first version.
http://code.google.com/p/gwt-html-editor/

Anonymous checkout:
svn checkout http://gwt-html-editor.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/ gwt-html-editor

This is preview release, it needs more testing on different browsers, I only tested on IE 7 and Firefox 2.0

Simple use case:

Editor editor = new Editor();
editor.setWidth("100%");
editor.setHeight("300px");
editor.setHTML("Hello World");

editor.load();
RootPanel.get().add(editor);

//...

String html = editor.getHTML();

Extended SPI and new formatting features are coming soon.

Check it out.

Any comments are highly appreciated.

Update: http://pavelgj.blogspot.com/2006/11/update-gwt-rich-text-editor-commit.html

Tutorial: GWT - Part 2: Your First GWT Application (dissected)

2006-11-23T12:22:00.000-08:00

Just added part 2 of the GWT tutorial series: Your First GWT Application (dissected)
http://pavelgj.googlepages.com/jpavels%27tutorials-gwt2
Part 2 explains the default GWT module descriptor, HTML file and the Entry Point class.
Any feedback is highly appreciated.

GWT Maven Plugin 1.0.3 Available

2006-11-23T07:44:00.000-08:00

Didn't know about the GWT Maven Plugin until this release. Here is the article (contains a short but a complete HOWTO):
http://www.oreillynet.com/onjava/blog/2006/11/gwt_maven_plugin_103_available.html

Tutorial: GWT - Part 1: Getting Started

2006-11-22T09:27:00.000-08:00

Added my first Tutorial: Google Web Toolkit - Getting Started
http://pavelgj.googlepages.com/gwt
Part 1 of GWT series covers basic installation and starting your first GWT project.
Any comments are very appreciated.

My first post

2006-11-22T09:03:00.000-08:00

Hey guys,

Finally decided to jump into the whole Blog thing. Hope it's going to be fun!
So, I also started a small web site to share my experience with different technologies and frameworks: Java, AJAX, Portals, Web Services, JavaScript and other cool stuff. I'll be posting updates here on my new mega-Blog! LOL

Pavel