Griffon
Swing just got fun again
James Williams

Agenda
> What's un-fun about Swing?
> What is Griffon?
> Getting Started
> Builders
> Griffon MVC
> Lifecycle
> Plugins/Addons
> Demos
> Q&A

What's un-fun about Swing?
> not knowing where stuff is
> can be very repetitive
> unresponsive user interfaces
> configuring webstart apps is a nightmare
> you're forced to choose between applets and desktop
fairly early

What is Griffon?
> desktop framework leveraging Swing and Groovy
> Apache 2 Licensed
> very extensible with plugins and addons
> allows you to code without worrying about the destination
platform

Griffon Application Structure

Getting Started
> griffon create-app
> griffon run-app
> griffon run-applet
> griffon run-webstart
> griffon package
> griffon list-plugins
> griffon install-plugin

Builders
> DSLs to compose complex object graphs
> Can automatically perform some common conversions
> Yield much more readable code than Java

Would you prefer this ...
public class JavaFrame extends JFrame {
public JavaFrame() {
setLayout(new GridLayout(3,1));
setTitle("Test");
setSize(100,100);
add(new JLabel("One"));
add(new JLabel("Two"));
add(new JLabel("Three"));
}
public static void main(String [ ] args) {
new JavaFrame().setVisible(true);
}
}

... or this?
def swing = new SwingBuilder()
swing.frame(size:[100,100], title:'Test', layout:new GridLayout(3,1))
{
label("One")
label("Two")
label("Three")
}.show()

30 sec Swing(X)Builder Quick Guide
> Take the class name (e.g. JFrame)
> Remove the J(X)
> Change the remaining node name to camel-case
> Any fields that follow the JavaBean spec can be passed in
a HashMap

UberBuilder - Builders on steriods
> Allows you to mix and match components
> Avoids collisions by setting up namespaces

UberBuilder - Supported toolkits
> Swing
> SwingX
> JIDE
> Flamingo
> MacWidgets
> SwingXtras
> Fx (JavaFX)
> Gfx (Java2D)

Griffon MVC Groups
> Models
- can use the @Bindable notation to provide data binding
- store the data for the MVC Group
> Views
- represent a single display in your applications
- can be written in Groovy OR Java
> Controllers
- the brains of the group
- can be injected with services

Binding
> general formats:
- bind{model.property}
- bind(target:model, targetProperty:'name')
- bind(source:model, sourceProperty:'name')
> one-way
> mutual binding

Binding and SwingPad Demo

Griffon Lifecycle
> Initialize
- run before any Swing code is started
> Startup
- run after MVC Groups are initialized
> Ready
- run after all events have been processed by the EDT
> Shutdown
- all cleanup operations should run here
> Stop
- only used by applets

The Evil Event Dispatching Thread
> edt
- runs on the EDT using invokeAndWait
> doLater
- runs on the EDT using invokeLater
> doOutside
- spins up a thread to run if not already outside the EDT
> withWorker (SwingWorker)
- for long running tasks where the UI might periodically update

Plugins
> are the delivery method to provide compile-time
functionality:
- Builders
- Other JVM Language Support
- Testing Frameworks
- Addons

Addons
> add functionality at run-time
> can add or respond to runtime events
> can decorate MVC Groups

Guice Add-on
> injects methods and fields using the @Inject annotation
> Groovy removes the need for binding interfaces to
modules
> smaller footprint and faster than Spring

Guice Configuration
application {
title='TestGuice'
startupGroups = ['TestGuice']
// Should Griffon exit when no Griffon created frames are showing?
autoShutdown = true
// If you want some non-standard application class, apply it here
//frameClass = 'javax.swing.JFrame'
}
/* truncated for brevity */
guice {
injectInto = ["controller"]
modules = ['NotifierModule']
}

GuiceController
class TestguiceController {
// these will be injected by Griffon
def model
def view
@Inject Notifier notifier
void mvcGroupInit(Map args) {
// this method is called after model and view are injected
injector.injectMembers(this)
// related settings from Application.groovy are injected
notifier.sendNotification("hi")
}
}

Griffon Links
> Download: http://griffon.codehaus.org/Download
> Plugins/Addons: http://griffon.codehaus.org/Plugins
> User mailing list: user@griffon.codehaus.org
> Dev mailing list: dev@griffon.codehaus.org

Griffon Team on Twitter
> James Williams (@ecspike)
> Danno Ferrin (@shemnon)
> Andres Almiray (@aalmiray)
> Josh Reed (@joshareed)
> Jim Shingler (@jshingler)
> Griffon News (@theaviary)