Integrating RequestFactory, MVP, Editor, etc.

[Amir Kashani]

I know 2.1 doesn't include any effort at linking the new frameworks together, but it seems that there were some ideas thrown around before feature freeze. Specifically, I've stumbled upon various classes that were once commited as part of the Expenses app (com.google.gwt.samples.expenses.client.place) and have subsequently been removed. I'm taking a look to see if I can borrow some ideas for my own application, and would appreciate a little guidance.

- Was there a fundamental problem with this approach that caused it to be abandoned or was there just not enough time to finalize and hammer out the details?

- Is there any sample usage of these classes at any time that I could look at in previous commits? It's a little hard to figure out exactly the intended usage just through the API. I tried sifting through commit logs, but nothing stood out.

- There is a separate activity for listing vs. editing proxies. If you're creating a master / details view, which seems to be the intended usage of these classes, which place has dominance for the history token? I get how multiple activities could be on screen by utilizing multiple target regions and/or activity mappers, but I'm not sure how that works when there are multiple places involved. For example, if I'm editing customer 2 and have paginated to page 3 of the customer list, what does history token look like? 

Thanks and we're loving the new stuff so far. Great job!

- Amir

[Thomas Broyer]

On 2 nov, 00:21, Amir Kashani <amirkash...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I know 2.1 doesn't include any effort at linking the new frameworks
> together, but it seems that there were some ideas thrown around before
> feature freeze. Specifically, I've stumbled upon various classes that were
> once commited as part of the Expenses app
> (com.google.gwt.samples.expenses.client.place) and have subsequently been
> removed. I'm taking a look to see if I can borrow some ideas for my own
> application, and would appreciate a little guidance.
>
> - Was there a fundamental problem with this approach that caused it to be
> abandoned or was there just not enough time to finalize and hammer out the
> details?

As the commit log said <http://code.google.com/p/google-web-toolkit/
source/detail?r=8946> they weren't finished:
"""Proxy specific places and activities are half baked, and have been
banished to the expenses sample (which will later be updated to use
them)"""
AFAICT, the idea is to eventually get them back into GWT proper.
Some of the missing parts:
- representing list paging in the ProxyListPlace
- representing some kind of "where was I before?" in the ProxyPlace
(notably: which page of the list of proxies), which could be used in
both master/detail view and "page swap" views (used in the mobile
version of the sample)

> - Is there any sample usage of these classes at any time that I could look
> at in previous commits? It's a little hard to figure out exactly the
> intended usage just through the API. I tried sifting through commit logs,
> but nothing stood out.

The Scaffold* classes (those generated by Roo) were using them, and
they were kept in the Expenses sample for a long time even though the
sample no longer used them; so you should easily find them back in
history.

> - There is a separate activity for listing vs. editing proxies. If you're
> creating a master / details view, which seems to be the intended usage of
> these classes, which place has dominance for the history token?

The ProxyPlace ("obviously" am I tempted to say! To the answer "where
am I?" or "what am I looking at?", would you answer "the list of
expense reports" or "the expense report from Xxx on Mon. Nov. 1st
2010" ?)

> I get how
> multiple activities could be on screen by utilizing multiple target regions
> and/or activity mappers, but I'm not sure how that works when there are
> multiple places involved.

You'll find the answer in the "scaffold" classes; but have a look at
the ProxyPlaceToListPlace class ;-)

> For example, if I'm editing customer 2 and have
> paginated to page 3 of the customer list, what does history token look
> like?

That's part of what was missing, and why they were relegated to the
Expenses sample (see above).