Vaadin Development Resources¶

Vaadin is an open source Web application framework for rich Internet applications. In contrast to JavaScript libraries and browser-plugin based solutions, it features a server-side architecture, which means that the majority of the logic runs on the servers. Ajax technology is used at the browser-side to ensure a rich and interactive user experience. On the client-side Vaadin is built on top of and can be extended with Google Web Toolkit.

This page holds information and resources for developing with the GWT-based Vaadin-Framework. For general information to this framework see: https://vaadin.com/faq

(quoted from Wikipedia:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaadin, the free encyclopedia)

• Table of contents
• Vaadin Development Resources
  • General Structure of Vaadin
    • Browser compatibility
    • Getting Started
      • cdm-vaadin project
      • cdm-vaadin project integration with the cdmlib-remote-webapp
    • Servlet Deployment Configuration
    • Vaadin Project
      • Creating a server-side UI
      • Vaadin Components
      • Vaadin AddOn's
  • Conventions & Policies
  • Vaadin Security

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General Structure of Vaadin¶

The Vaadin architecture can be split very roughly into client and server side.

The server side holds all the business logic and services as well as the standard java vaadin components, which will be translated into JavaScript later on.

The client side incorporates the GWT-part as well as client side specific JavaScript code, to do some more dynamic manipulation on the browser side.

All Vaadin Components are written in plain Java. There is no need to program in JavaScript or even HTML. This all will be compiled by the framework. See the next section for supported browsers.

Browser compatibility¶

Vaadin 7 supports the following browsers:

• Android 2.3 or newer

• Google Chrome 23 or newer

• Internet Explorer 8 or newer

• iOS 5,6,7 or newer

• Mozilla Firefox 17 or newer

• Opera 12 or newer

• Safari 6 or newer

NOTE: From release 7.2+ all permutations have been merged into a single one - refer #13274

Getting Started¶

To start with you will need to install the Eclipse IDE. Currently, the versions of Eclipse tested with this setup include :

• Eclipse 4.4.1 Luna

You will also need to install Maven 3.x.x

Since we will be using Jetty to run the project as web appplication, you will also need to install RunJettyRun plugin for Eclipse, specifically version 9.0.0+ which is available via the nightly update site - http://run-jetty-run.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/updatesite-nightly. The reason for the specific version of Jetty is due to the dependency on Servlet 3.0+ API which is used in the project.

The next step is to install the Vaadin Plugin for Eclipse - section 2.4.2 from the Book of Vaadin. This plugin provides tools for compiling widgetsets, creating Vaadin specific objects and designing components using the included Vaadin Visual Designer.

Checkout the cdm-vaadin project with

svn co http://dev.e-taxonomy.eu/svn/trunk/cdm-vaadin

and build the project with

mvn clean install

Vaadin specific maven goals include,

vaadin:clean
vaadin:resources
vaadin:update-theme
vaadin:update-widgetset
vaadin:compile-theme
vaadin:compile

For setting up the Eclipse project run,

mvn eclipse:eclipse

cdm-vaadin project¶

The cdm-vaadin project is a stand-alone war Eclipse / Maven project, which includes cdmlib dependencies allowing it to function as a full-fledged web application. This allows for testing the vaadin framework with the cdmlib. This project itself is not a target for deployment as a webapp, but is integrated into the cdmlib-remote-webapp project as described below.

cdm-vaadin project integration with the cdmlib-remote-webapp¶

To Be Done

Servlet Deployment Configuration¶

With Servlet 3.0+ all configuration other wise declared in web.xml can now be declared using annotations in specfic Java classes. The servlet deployment configuration for the project consists of,

• Web Application Initializer : consists currently of two main parts, both of which are declared in the 'eu.etaxonomy.cdm.vaadin.CdmAppInitializer' class.

  • ContextLoaderListener, a servlet context listener that associates a Spring application context with your servlet context and makes it accessible to other Spring classes. Typically this is defined via an applicationContext.xml file that sits in WEB-INF.
  • DispatcherServlet, a regular Java servlet that Spring provides. Each such servlet has its own Spring application context - distinct from, though a "child" of, the one mentioned above associated with the ContextLoaderListener. If your servlet is named foobar then the default XML file name is foobar-servlet.xml.

• Servlet Mapping : primarily connects a Vaadin UI class to a VaadinServlet class, with 'init-param' style annotations. Any of the UI classes in the project can be looked up for examples of this configuration.

NOTE: The 'Web Application Initializer' part of the configuration does not yet work for the moment (refer #) and is set for now in the web.xml.

Vaadin Project¶

Creating a server-side UI¶

Normally, you need to:

• extend the UI class

• build an initial UI from components

• define event listeners to implement the UI logic

Optionally, you can also:

• set a custom theme for the UI

• bind components to data

• bind components to resources

Vaadin Components¶

Vaadin AddOn's¶

The official Vaadin website hosts a directory of all available AddOn's http://vaadin.com/directory.

In order to add an extension to your project add the maven dependencies to your pom file and run

mvn eclipse:eclipse

the needed libraries will be downloaded. Check if the libraries are added in you IDE specific dependency tree. Sometimes it can be necessary to clean the whole project and build it again with

mvn clean install

Conventions & Policies¶

Vaadin Security¶

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNAo3ApWA-A