[Laszlo-user] Laszlo Development

[Aaron Judd]

Andrew,

Please stop by and check out what we are building at http:// 
www.webapplica.org/clearspacex/community/arcticfusion.  The  
Arcticfusion (open source webtop)  project's main goal is to build a  
tool that provides the entire framework for building laszlo  
applications. We don't provide any sort of GUI IDE, but we have a  
generator tool that can reverse engineer and build that basic laszlo  
screens if you have an existing database structure. If you don't have  
a database structure, it can be defined in an xml file, which will  
create both the laszlo interfaces, the database structure, with crud  
functionality. We also have use the MULE ESB at the core, so we  
connect to pretty much any existing application, and build interfaces  
from their existing architectures.  A simple order entry application  
could be written in days, if not hours complete with screens, help,  
and field validation (um, ok that might be developer overestimation,  
but you get it).

Check the demo out to see 730 use case screens that were generated in  
a few hours.  Most of this can be generated quite quickly,here is an  
example that was reversed from an existing database table.

The following example (partial) XML would generate create a table,  
"product_order_item", create primary,composite key joined to other  
tables, create a laszlo view, with search, and add new button, input  
with the label "Order Item", and context help "Find and select a  
order item".

<bean
	xmlns="http://webapplica.org/tools"
	xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
	xsi:schemaLocation="   http://webapplica.org/tools   http:// 
webapplica.org/tools/generation-1.0.xsd"
	name="ProductOrderItem"
	batchSize="5"
	comment="Product Order Item Entity"
	title="Product Order Item">
	<table name="product_order_item" />
	<cache usage="NONSTRICT_READ_WRITE" />
	<meta
		module="order"
		author="WebApplica"
		email="arcticfusion at webapplica.org"
		version="1" />
	<attributes>
		<attribute
			name="id"
			comment="Composite ID">
			<compositeKey comment="Composite ID">
				<attributes>
					<attribute
						name="orderItem"
						type="OrderItem"
						comment="OrderItem">
						<manyToOne>
							<cache usage="NONSTRICT_READ_WRITE" />
							<joinColumns>
								<joinColumn name="order_id" />
								<joinColumn name="order_item_seq_id" />
							</joinColumns>
						</manyToOne>
						<view label="Order Item">
							<field
								message="Find and select a Order Item!"
								dataLabel="productName" />
							<grid
								datapath="orderItem/product/@productName" />
						</view>
					</attribute>



We are actually building some initial demo modules based on the  
Opentaps.org / OfBiz.org ERP, which includes a sales order entry  
interface.

The project is quite early on (well, a year +), but we expect to have  
a developer release of the framework out in the very near future (30  
days or so).  We would be happy to spend some time walking you  
through how the project could be used for building an application  
like yours, and potentially we might be interested building your  
example as one of the project examples.  (Suggest starting a proposal  
conversation on our dev site).


-Aaron
http://www.webapplica.org
Arcticfusion Project

On Jul 10, 2007, at 8:58 AM, Andrew McLaughlin wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I'm just starting out on a pretty ambitious project to develop a  
> sales order entry Laszlo app (interfacing to MySQL via JSP). Laszlo  
> will be used strictly in an Ajax mode in that all data will be  
> loaded on the fly from the service, displaying a pop up list of  
> parts as they enter items or descriptions, showing the unit and  
> extended price as they enter values and even checking stock and  
> showing if a line item will be backordered once committed.
>
> So far, I'm totally confident in what it will take to build the  
> middle and back tiers, however I'm a little concerned regarding  
> Laszlo. Heretofore, I would have built this using straight Struts,  
> but wanted to give the client a little more bang for the buck.
>
> Question is: Is there any sort of GUI dev tool to layout the Laszlo  
> widgets or is it all hand XML coding? Is there at least a XSD or  
> even a DTD that I can leverage to speed up the effort? Currently,  
> I'm on the hook for the RFQ and basic design flow including  
> demonstrating how the UI will look (which will help sell the entire  
> project).
>
> Are there any reference implementations of any sort of order entry  
> that I can look at to get an idea of best practices for laying the  
> application out?
>
> Additionally, if you are a Laszlo consultant, I'd be interested in  
> farming out the GUI development to speed up the project as well.  
> Please reply in person and advise your billing rate and include a  
> link or two to some sample Laszlo apps that you may have built or  
> contributed to.
>
> Thanks,
> Andrew

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