Eclipse rcp+spring Build a FAT client Web program

The Eclipse Rich Client Platform (RCP) is rapidly becoming a framework choice for building fat client applications. This article will give you a detailed description of how to use Eclipse RCP for spring web development.

I. INTRODUCTION

While Web 2.0 and Rich Internet Applications (RIA) are now extremely popular, building a rich web front end when you really need the FAT client functionality may not really meet your requirements.

But if you really want to avoid the so-called RIA Mania and choose a real fat client solution, what do you do? The answer is: You can choose a rich client platform (RCP) to handle most of the work for you. In essence, this RCP concept provides a new framework for the Java Desktop Application world.

An RCP provides a framework/shell for an application, as well as a set of module based APIs that you can build your own application based on this shell. This RCP is responsible for all the heavy tasks, such as adding menus, toolbars, different views, and so on, and you don't have to repeat the work.

This article will guide you through the detailed construction of a rich client interface to connect to the server built in the previous article. You will build a FAT client based on Eclipse's rich client platform and integrate Eclipse RCP with spring.

"Ready to Work"

· Eclipse 3.1.2

· MyEclipse 4.1.1

· Java SE 5

• A servlet container or Java EE server (this article uses Tomcat 5.5+)

· Spring 1.2+

Two. Why use Eclipse RCP?

Now that more and more applications are being developed based on Eclipse RCP (and, of course, the eclipse's thick development background), we can safely assume that this framework has been tested more extensively than any other framework.

Below, let's start.