IT Mill Toolkit
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IT Mill Toolkit

Reference Manual

Copyright © 2000-2008 Oy IT Mill Ltd. All rights reserved.

2008-05-08

Abstract

IT Mill Toolkit enables developers to build high quality browser user interfaces with Java on server. It provides a library of ready to use high-quality user interface components and defines clean framework for creating your own components. The focus is in ease of use, re-usability, extensibility and meeting requirements of large enterprise application. The toolkit has been used in production since year 2001 and it is shown to be suitable for building demanding business applications.

Table of Contents

Preface
1. About This Book
1.1. Prerequisites
1.2. Organization of This Book
1.3. Supplementary Material
1.4. Online Resources
1.5. Support
I. Developer's Guide
1. Introduction
1.1. Overview
1.1.1. Goals and Philosophy
1.1.2. Background
1.1.3. Changes in IT Mill Toolkit Release 5
1.2. Example Application Walkthrough
1.2.1. Hello World!
1.2.2. Calculator
1.3. What's Inside the IT Mill Toolkit Package?
1.3.1. Installing
1.3.2. Package Contents
1.3.3. Starting the Content Browser
1.3.4. Running the Demo Applications
1.4. Getting Development Environment Up and Running
1.4.1. Installing Java SDK
1.4.2. Installing Eclipse IDE
1.4.3. Installing Apache Tomcat
1.4.4. Firefox and Firebug
1.5. QuickStart with Eclipse
1.5.1. Importing IT Mill Toolkit as a Project
1.5.2. How to Run the Demo Applications in Eclipse?
1.5.3. How to Debug the Demo Applications in Eclipse?
1.5.4. Using QuickStart as a Project Skeleton
1.6. Your First Project with IT Mill Toolkit
1.6.1. Creating the Project
1.6.2. Including IT Mill Toolkit Libraries
1.6.3. Writing the Code
1.6.4. Defining Deployment Descriptor
1.6.5. Ready to Go!
1.6.6. Starting the Web Server
1.6.7. Running and Debugging
2. Architecture
2.1. Overview
2.2. Technological Background
2.2.1. AJAX
2.2.2. Google Web Toolkit
2.2.3. JSON
2.3. Client-Side Engine
2.4. Events and Listeners
3. Writing a Web Application
3.1. Overview
3.2. Managing the Main Window
3.3. Child Windows
3.3.1. Opening and Closing a Child Window
3.3.2. Window Positioning
3.3.3. Modal Windows
3.4. Application-Level Windows
3.4.1. Creating New Application-Level Windows
3.4.2. Creating Windows Dynamically
3.4.3. Caveats in Using Multiple Windows
3.5. Referencing Resources
3.5.1. Resource Interfaces and Classes
3.5.2. File Resources
3.5.3. Class Loader Resources
3.5.4. Theme Resources
3.5.5. Stream Resources
3.6. Error Handling
3.6.1. Error Indicator
3.7. Application Environment
3.7.1. Creating Deployable WAR in Eclipse
3.7.2. Web Application Contents
3.7.3. Deployment Descriptor web.xml
3.8. Embedding Applications in Web Pages
3.8.1. Embedding Inside a <div> Element
3.8.2. Embedding Inside an <iframe> Element
4. User Interface Components
4.1. Overview
4.2. Label
4.3. Link
4.4. TextField
4.5. Date and Time Input
4.5.1. Calendar
4.5.2. DateField Locale
4.6. Button
4.7. Check Box
4.8. Selecting Items
4.8.1. Basic Select Component
4.8.2. Native Selection Component NativeSelect
4.8.3. Radio Button and Check Box Groups with OptionGroup
4.8.4. Twin Column Selection with TwinColSelect
4.8.5. Allowing Adding New Items
4.8.6. Multiple Selection Mode
4.9. Table
4.9.1. Scrollable Tables
4.9.2. Paging Tables
4.9.3. List Tables
4.10. Tree
4.11. Embedded
4.12. Upload
4.13. Progress Indicator
4.13.1. Doing Heavy Computation
4.14. Custom Composite Components
4.14.1. CustomComponent
4.15. Common Component Features
4.15.1. Sizing Components Through Sizeable
5. Managing Layout
5.1. Background for Layout
5.2. Layout Components
5.2.1. Ordered Layout
5.2.2. Grid layout
5.2.3. Panel
5.2.4. Tab Sheet
5.2.5. Expanding Layout
5.3. Controlling Layout Formatting
5.3.1. Layout Cell Alignment
5.3.2. Layout Cell Spacing
5.3.3. Layout Margins
5.4. Custom Layouts
6. Themes
6.1. Overview
6.2. Introduction to Cascading Style Sheets
6.2.1. Basic CSS Rules
6.2.2. Matching by Element Class
6.2.3. Matching by Descendant Relationship
6.2.4. Notes on Compatibility
6.3. Creating and Using Themes
6.3.1. Styling Standard Components
6.3.2. Using Themes
6.3.3. Theme Inheritance
7. Data Model
7.1. Overview
7.2. Properties
7.3. Holding properties in Items
7.4. Collecting items in Containers
8. Developing Custom Components
8.1. Overview
8.2. Google Web Toolkit Widgets
8.2.1. Extending an IT Mill Toolkit Widget
8.2.2. Example: A Color Picker GWT Widget
8.2.3. Styling GWT Widgets
8.3. Integrating a GWT Widget
8.3.1. Deserialization of Component State from Server
8.3.2. Serialization of Component State to Server
8.3.3. Example: Integrating the Color Picker Widget
8.4. Defining a Widget Set
8.4.1. GWT Module Descriptor
8.5. Server-Side Components
8.5.1. Server-Client Serialization
8.5.2. Client-Server Deserialization
8.5.3. Extending Standard Components
8.5.4. Example: Color Picker Server-Side Component
8.6. Using a Custom Component
8.6.1. Example: Color Picker Application
8.6.2. Web Application Deployment
8.7. GWT Widget Development
8.7.1. Creating a Widget Project in Eclipse
8.7.2. Importing GWT Installation Package
8.7.3. Creating a GWT Module
8.7.4. Compiling GWT Widget Sets
8.7.5. Ready to Run
8.7.6. Hosted Mode Browser
9. Advanced Web Application Topics
9.1. Special Characteristics of AJAX Applications
9.2. Resources
9.2.1. URI Handlers
9.2.2. Parameter Handlers
9.3. Java Servlet Parameters
9.4. Shortcut Keys
10. User Interface Definition Language (UIDL)
10.1. API for Painting Components
10.2. JSON Rendering
10.3. UIDL Syntax
Bibliography

List of Figures

1.1. IT Mill Toolkit General Architecture
1.2. IT Mill Toolkit Package Contents
1.3. Development Toolchain and Process
1.4. Firebug Debugger for Firefox
1.5. IT Mill Toolkit Imported as a Project in Eclipse
1.6. IT Mill Toolkit Content Browser Started Under Eclipse
1.7. Terminating a Launch
1.8. Removing Terminated Launches
1.9. Execution Stopped at Breakpoint in Debug Perspective in Eclipse
1.10. A New Dynamic Web Service Project
1.11. A Ready Project
1.12. Running an IT Mill Toolkit Application
1.13. Debugging an IT Mill Toolkit Application
2.1. IT Mill Toolkit Architecture
2.2. Architecture of IT Mill Toolkit Client-Side Engine
2.3. Class Diagram of a Button Click Listener
3.1. Opening a Child Window
3.2. Screenshot of the Modal Window Demo Application
3.3. Communication Between Two Application-Level Windows
3.4. Resource Interface and Class Diagram
3.5. Screenshot of the stream resource example with an embedded image
3.6. Embedded Application
3.7. IT Mill Toolkit Applications Embedded Inside IFrames
4.1. UI Component Inheritance Diagram
4.2. The Label Component
4.3. Label Modes Rendered on Screen
4.4. Referencing An Image Resource in Label
4.5. Single- and Multi-Line Text Field Example
4.6. Example of the Date Field with Default Style
4.7. Example of the Date Field with Calendar Style
4.8. An Example of a Button
4.9. An Example of a Check Box
4.10. Retrieval of the Currently Selected Item
4.11. The Select Component
4.12. Filtered Selection
4.13. Radio Button Group
4.14. Twin Column Selection
4.15. Select Component with Adding New Items Allowed
4.16. Basic Table Example
4.17. Table Selection Example
4.18. Example with Checkbox Components in a Table
4.19. Table with Paging Style
4.20. Table with List Style
4.21. A Partially Expanded Tree
4.22. The Progress Indicator Component
4.23. Starting Heavy Work
5.1. The Grid Layout Component
5.2. A Simple TabSheet Layout
5.3. A TabSheet with a Hidden and Disabled Tabs
5.4. The ExpandLayout Component
5.5. Cell Alignment Modes
5.6. Layout Spacings
5.7. Layout Margins
5.8. Example of a Custom Layout Component
6.1. Theme Contents
6.2. Simple Styling by Element Type
6.3. Matching HTML Element Type and Class
6.4. Matching Only HTML Element Class
6.5. Themeing Login Box Example with Default Theme
6.6. Themeing Login Box Example with Custom Theme
7.1. IT Mill Toolkit Data Model
8.1. Color Picker Module
8.2. GWT Widget Base Class Hierarchy
8.3. Color Picker Widget Without Styling
8.4. Color Picker Widget With Styling
8.5. Annotated Project Contents
8.6. Hosted Mode Browser
8.7. Creating New Launch Configuration
8.8. Naming Launch Configuration
8.9. GWTShell Arguments
8.10. Setting a Breakpoint
8.11. Debugging with Hosted Mode Browser

List of Tables

4.1. Content Modes for Label
4.2. Selection Components
4.3. Caption Modes for Selection Components
5.1. Spacing Style Names
6.1. Default CSS Style Names of IT Mill Toolkit Components
8.1. UIDL Variable Types

List of Examples

1.1. HelloWorld.java
1.2. Calc.java
1.3. Web.xml Deployment Descriptor for a Project
3.1. web.xml
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