Eclipse RAP
JUG Cologne, 5th October 2009 Fabian Lange

Agenda
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Eclipse RAP
•Rich Ajax Platform
•Created under the name W4T (WWWWindowingToolkit)
•Eclipse project since Ganymede release
•Donated by Innoopract
•Maintained by EclipseSource
•Strategic asset for Eclipse 4 (e4) currently in incubation
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So what is it?
•SWT for the web
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How does RAP do that?
•Interfaces!
•The reason for using interfaces is that you can switch implementations
•OSGi
•RAP cheats and just claims to be the SWT layer
Application
RCP
RWT
SWT
OSGi
Operating System
*architecture stack simplified
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100%
•RAP is not 100% compatible with RCP
•And most likely will not be
•RCP has design flaws preventing multiuser support
•Workarounds exist, e4 will solve many issues
•Fail early concept
•If it is not supported, it doesn’t compile
•Good news: 100% is often not required
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History of RAP
•October 2007
•1.0 release. First release to adhere to RCP/SWT APIs
•June 2008
•1.1 release, part of Ganymede. Brings many APIs to par
•June 2009
•1.2 release, part of Galileo. Improved stability and response times
•Today
•Large quantities of RCP application code work on RAP
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Agenda
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Demo
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Agenda
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Light Side
•Migrate existing RCP applications
•Depending on app, almost for free
•Develop Web Apps RCP Style
•Reuse developer know-how
•Easily develop complex applications
•Compared to traditional way of adding JavaScript widgets
•Some means of web styling
•Web “compatible” themes
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Dark Side
•Don’t build web sites
•It is a pain in many aspects
•Heavy JavaScript
•Slow, but browsers get better
•Differences between desktop and web
•Loading and saving files, printing and similar
•RAP does not support all RCP features
•Some key&mouse stuff, GraphicalContext
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More Topics
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References
•eclipsesource.com/rap
•Marketing site with demos and stories
•eclipse.org/rap
•Main resource for technical information
•eclipsesource.com/blogs/tag/eclipse-rap
•Latest news from the RAP team
•qooxdoo.org
•JavaScript Widget Framework used by RAP
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The Book
•www.rap-book.com
•Introduction for developers & managers
•Covers RAP 1.1 (works for newer as well)
•Architecture
•Includes SWT, RCP and OSGi
•Development
•RCP for web and single sourcing
•Deployment
•In OSGi or web container
21 © 2009 codecentric GmbH Eclipse RAP

Contact
Fabian Lange
Senior IT Consultant
E-Mail: lange@codecentric.de
codecentric GmbH
Merscheider Str. 1
42699 Solingen
Phone: 0212 / 233628 10
E-Mail: info@codecentric.de
Homepage: www.codecentric.de
22 © 2009 codecentric GmbH Eclipse RAP