IBM SWT Data Binding Toolkit for Rational Application Developer
A set of tools that allow easy data binding for SWT components so users can effortlessly access data from various data sources (EJB, Web services, Java beans, or JDBC).
Date Posted: May 19, 2005
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What is IBM SWT Data Binding Toolkit for Rational® Application Developer?
This technology is analogous to the Swing Data Binding shipped in Rational Application Developer (RAD), Version 6, which has been extended to include data binding for Standard Widget Toolkit (SWT) components so users can effortlessly access data from various data sources (enterprise JavaTM beans (EJB), Web services, Java beans, or JDBC SDO).
This set of tools includes an intuitive user interface and, used along with the Java Visual Editor in RAD 6.0.0.1, allows easy data-binding through code generation in the most common situations in the development of a SWT-based Java application. It provides users with the ability to connect the visual SWT elements of the Java application so that they can access data from various data sources.
How does it work? In RAD 6, the Java Visual Editor provides a generic collection of interfaces and classes that help to bind visual components to data sources such as enterprise bean, Java Bean factories, or Web services for Swing. With this toolkit, SWT data binding support is now also provided. It also includes support for Java Database Connectivity (JDBC), which is a standard SQL database access interface, providing uniform access to a wide range of relational databases through selected SWT visual components such as tables, text fields, and action buttons.
A visual SWT component, such as a table or a text field, needs a data source from which to pull data and, potentially, to push data to. The IBM SWT Data Binding Toolkit for RAD provides three types of helper classes that can be generated into a project to enable simple and quick binding of visual components with data from a data source. The purpose of these helper classes is not to provide a run-time framework for binding data to visual components, but rather to provide a quick start to the visual development of client applications. The three types of helper classes are data sources, data objects, and binders.
Java developers can bind GUI components to back-end data sources using dialog-driven wizards. This automation means that little or no knowledge of the internals of the supported back-end data sources is required and, therefore, speeds up the development process. This technology would be particularly useful for application prototyping where a lot of required infrastructure can be automatically generated, leaving the developer free to focus on the business logic.
These tools are encapsulated into a plug-in, which is then incorporated into Rational Application Developer Version 6.0.0.1.
Further information is available in the readme.html file contained within the download file. In addition, the IBM SWT Data Binding Toolkit for RAD is an integral part of the IBM WebCast on "Building Applications for the IBM Workplace Client Technology using RAD6."
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| | About the technology author(s):
Martin Donnelly is an advisory software engineer with the IBM Software Group at the Dublin Software Lab. Mr. Donnelly has worked on various features of Rational Application Developer, including the Java Visual Editor, Java Server Faces components for the Web and SWT, automated data binding for SWT and Swing components, etc. He was also a lead contributor to the Domino Designer up to Release 6.0 while living and working in Masschusetts. Mr. Donnelly's main technical interest focuses on building intuitive design and development tools.
Alasdair McDowell is a software developer at the IBM Dublin Software Lab. Mr. McDowell has spent several years creating development tools for Web and rich client technologies.
Eugene Konstantinov is a Software Engineer at the IBM Dublin Software Lab. He graduated from the Tomsk State University of Russia in 1996. As a Sun Certified Java Developer and Sun Certified Web Component Developer, Mr. Konstantinov has worked with Java technologies since joining IBM in 2001.
Padraic Edwards joined IBM in 2004 and works at the IBM Dublin Software Lab. He is a recent graduate and holds a B.Sc in Software Development with German. Mr. Edwards's interests are Java, JVE, and Eclipse technologies.
Paul Hannan is a test engineer at the Dublin Software Lab. He began working with IBM ten years ago on the globalization effort with Lotus Notes and Domino, and he currently works on application development tools. Mr. Hannan holds a B.Sc. degree from Trinity College, Dublin. |
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