Using SWT to develop Web applications

SMARTSWT Introduction

In order to improve the interface performance of traditional Web applications, RIA technology is timely, and various RIA platforms improve the rich graphical interface through various means. Like Bindows, it uses dynamic HTML technology to simulate Windows controls, as well as flex, to use flash as a performance layer for Web applications to compensate for the lack of DHTML technology.

The SMARTSWT is an RIA publishing platform based on SWT. It can release the common SWT application directly into a Web application accessible through the client browser, which makes it possible to develop rich UI Web applications directly through SWT. Moreover, many of the expansion packages based on SWT extensions can be used directly, such as JFace, GEF, and so on.

SMARTSWT and smartclient are not the same, it is not the SWT application to download to the client to run, but with the B/S model of the Web application, the entire application is running on the server side, but the operation of the graphical interface in real-time display in the client's browser, And the client's operational events are automatically returned to the server in real time, triggering the event handling code of the original SWT application of the service side to handle. The database operation and file operation of the SWT application are relative to the server side, but not like the C/s application, it needs the client to send the data back to the service end according to the custom communication protocol.

SMARTSWT the bottom of the communication is encrypted and efficient, in the intranet client open the service side of SWT application, and the original directly in the use of the machine compared to the difference. This is equivalent to the feeling of running the application after you drop the CPU of your machine.

The current beta version of SMARTSWT is 3.1, representing a compatible application that supports SWT3.1.

The following illustration is an SWT application (SWT control Example) that is accessed by the client through IE browser after the SMARTSWT platform is deployed:

Installation Run

The beta version of SMARTSWT only supports Windows systems, and its server-side official version will support systems such as Linux, Unix, and so on, as described in its user manual. The SMARTSWT installation runs very simply, downloading SmartSWT31 packets from the www.smartswt.com and decompressing them, with three subdirectories smartswtclient, Smartswtserver, and web under the decompression directory.

1. Open the Smartswtclient directory and run the Setup.exe installation client, which will install a custom small Java virtual machine on the client.

2. Open the Smartswtserver directory, run the Startup.bat, will run the SMARTSWT server, SMARTSWT use your own Java Virtual machine, so you do not have to prepare it beforehand.

3. If your client and server are all in the same machine, then go directly to the Web subdirectory, open the index.htm file with IE, about 15 seconds or so in IE browser to start the SMARTSWT desktop, you can then through the Start menu, start the built-in demo program experience.