Nuxeo 5.2
RIA technologies and Nuxeo
Thierry Delprat |

RIA and Nuxeo
● Already several client-side technologies
● browser based: JSF/Seam and WebEngine
● RCP based: Apogee
● Why adding more?
● sometimes look&feel is a major issue
● rich and reactive application in a browser
● for rich media management
● to open Nuxeo platform to new developers
● because we wanted to play :)

Adding Flex and GWT
Dedicated
RIA
GWT
Flex / Air
WebEngine General public
WCM / WebSites Nuxeo Platform Application
Eclipse RCP JSF
NXShell
Business
Hi-productivity Application
contribution
Administration

Nuxeo 5.2
Google Web Toolkit
Thierry Delprat |

Why GWT ?
● To address browser based RIA
● rich and reactive application without deployment
● Because GWT looks cool
● nice development model
● nice widget libs
● Because we are mainly Java developers
● no JS developers
● no (real) flex developers

GWT strengths
● Very pleasant development model
● almost no JavaScript to write
● hosted mode for real debugging
● efficient UI development model
● Nice widgets libs
● Handles transparently multi-browser support
● Works well!

GWT weaknesses
● Works in a sandbox
● needs to stay in the sandbox
● No real modularity system
● everything must be resolved at compile time
● No state management
● all the states in handled in the JS VM
● browser navigation can kill the app

GWT use cases in Nuxeo EP
● Annotea client
● a lot of UI is handled in JS client side
● Nuxeo Annotea server expose a native REST API
● client needs to manipulate HTML DOM
● Tiling / Annotation client
● GWT UI toolkit make it easy to have a rich UI
● Nuxeo Tiling service exposes a native REST API

Annotations/Tiling with GWT

GWT and WebEngine
● WebEngine and GWT play well together
● WebEngine provides navigation and pluggability
● WebEngine provides REST APIs
● GWT provides the widget model
● Use cases
● small dedicated UI hosted into a WebEngine page
– users management
– specific content browser
– ...

Easy RIA with GWT and WebEngine
● nuxeo-gwt-core
make GWT pluggable in Nuxeo
● provide Extension-points to GWT
● extensions are resolved/contributed at build time
● helpers for JSON and asynchronous requests
● nuxeo-gwt-ui
framework for a multi-tabbed editor for Nuxeo Documents
● Layout / Views management
● Context management

Nuxeo 5.2
AMF/Flex connector
Thierry Delprat |

Why a flex connector ?
Flex is well suited for some applications
Rich media applications
(ex: eLearning)
Applications
where look & feel is capital
(ex : marketing for end users)

Why a Flex connector ?
● Because Flex 3 has become a real platform
● Browser techno: Flex
● Desktop techno: Air
● Developer tools: based on Eclipse
● Remoting framework : BlazeDS / AMF
● Because there are a lot of Flex developers

Nuxeo and Flex, how ?
● Access Nuxeo ECM service from a Flex client
● via HTTP with simple REST API
– reuse existing REST services
– no Flex connector needed
● via AMF
– native binary marshalling (fast and efficient)
– requires a connector to expose Nuxeo Services via AMF
● let Flex and Air clients
● fetch / push documents from Nuxeo
● access all Nuxeo services

Nuxeo Flex connector
● AMF provider choice
● Exadel/Flamingo AMF connector (used in alpha)
– easy to use
– bound to Seam framework
– no complete dataservice API
– based on GraniteDS code
● GraniteDS
– complete data service API
– flexible and pluggable

Nuxeo DS – server side connector
● Based on GraniteDS
● Expose Seam components via AMF remoting
● Expose Runtime service via AMF remoting
● Pluggable marshalling
● via NXRuntime Extension points
● via GraniteDS pluggable architecture
● Use Seam for state mngt of stateful services

Nuxeo DS – client side
● AS client side library
● encapsulates Authentication
● encapsulates DocumentModel marshalling
● Several samples code provided
● demonstrate basic usage of Nuxeo API via AMF
● Build system integrated with maven

Nuxeo Air Explorer