What's new in version 3.0

Added an HTML Builder

The HTML builder makes it possible to load pages from HTML and generate a Swing user interface from those pages. The builder makes uses of a set of prototype tag handlers that instantiate Swing components for the the HTML elements and add them to the page. TableLayout is used for handling tables and this library is added o the libs folder. This new feature also makes use of the new support for multiple page loaders so that it is not necessary to specify whether or not a page is XML or HTML, whichever is found will be loaded. As the AriaBuilder is the initial builder it will get preference and will make the first attempt to load the page. An HTML builder can be installed or configured by startup parameters.

Toolbar support added

A new element in the framsets file has been added to provide support for toolbars. The toolbars will be treated as a special page and docked into the application frame. A new widget, the ToolbarButton has also been added to help implement toolbars. The toolbar buttons can take both text and icons.

New splash screen functionality

New splash screen functionality has been added with the SplashWindow class, based on work by Werner Randelshofer. The new class is set as the main entry point, loads and then invokes the Aria start class proper. This new splash functionality appears alot quicker than the previously documented method of creating a splash screen. The functionality of this splash screen is available across all JDKs and is independent of the new splash screen functionality in Mustang.

Component registration extended

An extended method of registering components has been added. Now by specifying the reflect="true" parameter for a component it is possible to register a component in a single line. Any subsequent access of a component attribute will use reflection to find the appropriate accessor method, and these accessors are then cached for reuse. To register swing components for example all that is needed is the following in the project's components.xml file:

Reflective component property registration

 <Component name="JButton" class="javax.swing.JButton" reflect="true"/>

In addition to this extended registration, the editor now adds references to the Jar file used by the components as they are added to a project and therefore editing the component registration is only necessary if you are adding new or third party components, or if you need to do some special customization. In most cases the component writer will take care of registration.

Extended localization support

A set of new classes for loading resource bundles has been added. Of these, the new EncodedLanguageResourceBundleLoader class allows an additional file, a '.propety_encoding' file to be specified for each language. The file can include a value for the associated properties file endcoding and a set of font maps for that language. The font map can be used to replace fonts on a face-by-face basis, or as a combination of face name and point size.

Added support for multiple projects

A set of new classes for loading resource bundles has been added. Of these, the new EncodedLanguageResourceBundleLoader class allows an additional file, a '.propety_encoding' file to be specified for each language. The file can include a value for the associated properties file endcoding and a set of font maps for that language. The font map can be used to replace fonts on a face-by-face basis, or as a combination of face name and point size.

Added input validation feedback

Input fields can now display feedback based upon the success or failure of input validations. So far the validation feedback styles are set on a global basis via the BaseValidator.setValidationColors method.

System colors support added

Support for the system colors has now been added and the named colors can be used in the style files. For example a value can now be specified. See the java.awt.SystemColor class for more details

Specifying a system colour

 <color_fore value="activeCaption"/> 

Extended style support added

Styles including values other than the basic font and color attributes can now be created. The styles are created as instances of StyleEx instead of the basic Style and these new styles can have any style attribute. When the styles are loaded storage is added for any style name. Once the style has loaded it is marked as closed and further styles can not be (by default) added.

This extension of the style system will make it possible to handle far more component attributes as styles and therefore further consistency can be added to applications. For the built in components the extra style attributes can be used to control values such as alignment, indents, and many other attributes. When the style is being applied to a component following construction the extra attribute values will be set either via the AttributedComponent interface or via reflection, if the particular component does not support that interface.

In the example below, the extended style is indicated by the extended="true" attribute of the style element, the extra property is specified as the alignment element

Extended styles

  <style name="label" extended="true">
	  <color_back value="ffffff"/>
	  <font_face value="Arial"/>
	  <font_size value="11"/>
	  <font_weight value="0"/>
	  <font_italic value="0"/>
	  <alignment value="right"/>
	  <style name="bold">
		  <font_weight value="1"/>
	 </style>
 </style> 

Validations triggered on page transition

Added a TriggerValidations startup properties that is set to true by the new project wizard - and therefore older projects will be unaffected. The flag is read by the PageManager and if true causes the validations to be checked prior to page transition. If the validations fail the page transition will be blocked such that the user must review and correct the reported validation errors.

An exception handler has been added to the attribute evaluator

An exception handler has been added to the attribute evaluator. The handler gets called in case of an exception and can override the result returned by the attribute evaluator. The evaluator may be of use in case, for example, an evaluation depends on a list selection and where that list may not have a selected values - the list would otherwise return a value such as null or -1 to indicate the error and this is probably not a valid value for the evaluated attribute. Say a path of a/b/${c}/d/e is enetered and ${c} depends on say a list selection and that list is not fully initialized.

SWT support enhanced and extended

A major revision and implementation of the SWT widget set has taken place. The most important widgets are now wrapped and usable in Aria. The applet/application has also been updated to share the very latest Aria infrastructure. A number of helpers, utilities and layout components have also been included. Along with the core SWT development a sample SWT application manager has been included, the Aria International Soccer Manager, demonstrates how to build a complete application using Aria and SWT.

The home page is now optional

The home page can now be excluded by specifying a value of NONE if the startup properties. Preventing the home page from loading may be desireable in the case of framesets or other application types where the frames file may also contain a specification for the home page.

Annotation support added

Added annotation support such that the page class can have the following annotations

Annotations

 @Page( "foobar" )
 class MyClass extends Page
 {
   @Find
   private Button myBtn;</P>
</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD ROWSPAN="1" COLSPAN="1">
<P>
   @Bind( "a/b/c" )
   private Edit myInput;</P>
</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD ROWSPAN="1" COLSPAN="1">
<P>
   @Validate( "CreditCardRule" )
   private Edit cardNumber;</P>
</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD ROWSPAN="1" COLSPAN="1">
<P>
   @Event( method="doProcessing", type="ActionHandler" )
   private Button processBtn;
 </P>
</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD ROWSPAN="1" COLSPAN="1">
<P>
 ...
 
   public void doProcessing()
   {
     ...
   }
 
   ...
 } 

Extended the shutdown hook and application lifecycle listeners

The Shutdown hook has been extended to support multiple lifecycle listeners. The lifecycle listener gives an application the opportunity to perform cleanup and shutdown activities before the JVM exits. Typically an application may wish to close file or database connections or free up resources before exiting. A new listener, the DataBaseLifecycleListener has been added as ahelper for those

applications using a database like HSQLDB in in-memory or standalone mode that requires the database to be shutdown via a SHUTDOWN query.

A LayerLayout has been added

The LayerLayout is intented for use with pages and panels where you want to overlay one set of components with another. All the children of the container with the LayerLayout are given the same size and hence overlay one another. The components are located in the order in which they are created. An application may have to set the opaque property of the panels added to the layers so that the layers appear as expected.

The layering is intended to allow things like background decorations to be added and controlled easily. Layering may also be used to implement features such as overlays and modal/lock-out behavior, say for example overlaying a progress animation during a long running operation.

A ColumnLayout has been added

The column layout is a layout in which you can define columns of components. The components are added in rows, but align to the columns. An example usage is in creating forms where a left hand column may contain labels or captions while the right hand column may contain the input fields. Indentation, spacing and padding may be added to control the layout and define the location of individual compoents.

Repeat syntax support extended

The Repeat syntax has been extended to support bindings and events, this should improve the ability to create templates containing bindings and events.

Component customization support added

A new facility for customizing components has been added such that a collection of method calls can be made to customize a component and set properties on that component. The facility is itself customizable, supporting adapters to control how the properties are applied to the component. The customizations can be applied post creation of the component are just before activation of the page, when the component has been populated. For example in the case of a table the property may apply to the table columns rather than the table itself.

In the example below a table is customized in this way:

A customized component

  <ScrollPane>
	<Table2 name="currentAED" .... customizer="tableCustomizer"/>
  </ScrollPane> 

the customizer attribute refers to a customization specified in the customizations.xmlfield. The customization file is as follows:

Specifying customizations

 <customizer>
   <Adaptors>
     <Adaptor name="ColumnAdaptor" class="org.formaria.registry.TableColumnCustomizer"/>
   </Adaptors></P>
</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD ROWSPAN="1" COLSPAN="1">
<P>
 <PropertySets>
     <PropertySet name="tableCustomizer" when="1">
       <AutoCreateColumnsFromModel args="false"/>
       <GridColor args="white"/>
       <ViewportBackground args="white"/>
       <Background target="parent" value="white"/>
       <HeaderRenderer adaptor="ColumnAdaptor" 
             scope="*" class="org.formaria.swing.table.TableHeaderRenderer" 
             args="getTableHeader()"/>
       <CellRenderer adaptor="ColumnAdaptor" 
             scope="0-6" 
             class="org.formaria.swing.table.AltRowTableCellRenderer">
         <VerticalAlignment args="1"/><!--SwingConstants.TOP -->
         <AltUnselectedColors args="0,0,102;252,252,255"/>
       </CellRenderer></P>
</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD ROWSPAN="1" COLSPAN="1">
<P>
       <CellRenderer 
             adaptor="ColumnAdaptor" 
             scope="N" class="org.formaria.swing.table.AltRowTableCellRenderer">
         <VerticalAlignment args="1"/><!--SwingConstants.TOP -->
         <AltUnselectedColors args="0,0,102;252,252,255"/>
         <WrapsText args="true"/>     
       </CellRenderer>
       <AutoResizeMode args="1"/><!--JTable.AUTO_RESIZE_NEXT_COLUMN -->
     </PropertySet>
   </PropertySets>
 </customizer> 

The results of this customization is a table like the following, with row striping and customized header:

Painter replaced with SwingX Painter

The painter classes have been refactored to extend the SwingX Painter class. The SwingX interface was very close to the Aria interface and by using the SwingX version we will have access to a wider range of painters.

POJO support added

Support for using POJOs as a backing for the Aria data model has been added. POJOs can be configured from a variety of sources, including hibernate. Most of the configuration takes place automatically via reflection and little needs to be done other than pointing Aria at the root of the POJO model.

POJOs or Plain Old Java Objects support has been added in Aria 3.0. The new support for using POJOs as a backing for the Aria data model means that POJOs can be bound to user interface components just as easily as static data or database data. The POJO model may be home grown or generated with tools such as JDO or Hibernate. Most of the configuration takes place automatically via reflection and little needs to be done other than pointing Aria at the root of the POJO model.

Here's a sample configuration, showing how some POJO properties are overridden and some finders are refined.

Pojo mappings

 <Pojos id="beaumont">
   <context class="org.formaria.clinic.ClinicInstance" config="pojoConfig.xml"/>
   <overrides>
     <pojo id="patient" class="org.formaria.clinic.Patient">
       <!--identifier id="id" method="getPatientId"/-->
       <collection id="patientId" method="getPatients"/>
     </pojo>
     <pojo id="clinic" class="iorg.formaria.clinic.ClinicDAO">
       <property id="id" getter="getClinicId"/></P>
</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD ROWSPAN="1" COLSPAN="1">
<P>
       <finder id="patients" getter="getPatients" class="org.formaria.clinic.Patient">
         <key id="name" method="getName()"/>
       </finder>
       <property id="name" getter="getClinicName" setter="setClinicName"/>
     </pojo>
   </overrides>
   <root id="pojo" class="org.formaria.clinic.ClinicDAO">
     <param class="String" value="Clinic"/>
   </root>
 </Pojos> 

The POJOs are then attched via the root object that serves to connect the Aria model and POJO hierarchy. A sample usage is as follows:

Pojo binding

  <Page class="org.formaria.swing.Dialog" title="Test POJOs" padding="0">
	  <Components>
		  <Label name="clinicName" x="10" y="10" w="200" h="20" style="stripe"/>
	  </Components>
	  <Data>
		  <Bind target="clinicName" source="pojo/patients@idx=[1]/name"/>
	  </Data>
  </Page> 

where pojo/patients@idx=[1]/name refers to the second item returned by the getPatients() method of the root object. The root object as specified in the configuration is an instance of the ClinicDAO class. The root instance can be parametrized or alternatively it can be instantiated by the POJO context class.

Data bindings refactored

The data bindings in Aria 3.0 have been significantly refactored to work off a common interface. Not only does this unify and simplify the constuction of bindings, but it also makes it possible to have greater control over the creation of bindings and the provision of diagnostic services. See the DataBindingFactory page for more details.

Similar refactorings have taken place in the event handling and validation support.

Set startup objects

Multple startup objects can now be added simply by adding startup property entries in the form:

Listing the startup objects

 StartupObject<N>=Name;className
 StartupObject<N>=Name;className;Project

where is a counter starting from 0. In the second example the object is constructed via a constructor that takes an instance of the project as an argument

While this may seem like an insignificant change it opens up the possiblity of having multiple applications running within the same JVM and it means that an application can be built from modular elements, elements that can exist as standalone applications or as integrated modules.

Drag and drop support added

Drag and drop supported has been added for selected Swing components. Support is enabled by adding dragEnabled="true" as an attribute. Additional support can be registered by adding a transferhandlers.xml file to the project. The setup is similar to that of the setup of data bindings.

Unknown attributes now set reflectively

f there is no way of setting the attributes of a component directly, or through the AttributedComponent interface, or through a ComponentAdapter then reflection will be used to set the properties. The methods signatures are

parameter types are set using the JVM type signature syntax, for example

Reflective property

    <List name="sourceList" x="10" y="11" w="305" h="251" dragEnabled="[Ztrue]"/> 

Map page names

A page name can now be paramaterized or mapped, so that a frames file or startup.properties file can specify a key instead of a page name. This key can then be mapped to a specific page depending on the context or on startup parameters.

Mapped page names

 // In startup.properties specifc the Lifecycle object
 LifeCycleListener=org.formaria.beaumont.ProjectListener
 
 
 // In that object map the "START_PAGE" page name
 public class ProjectListener implements LifeCycleListener
 {
   /**
    * Called when the application/applet has been created and initialized.
    * @param project the owner project
    */
   public void initialize( Project p )</P>
</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD ROWSPAN="1" COLSPAN="1">
<P>
 {
 
     String[] args = (String[])project.getObject( "StartupArgs" );   
     // Set the start page to the 3rd command-line parameter    
     p.getPageManager().mapPageName( "START_PAGE", args[ 3 ] );
   }
 } </P>
</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD ROWSPAN="1" COLSPAN="1">
<P>
 // In the frames.xml include the "START_PAGE" key
 <Frame name="content" constraint="content" width="500" height="200" 
   content="START_PAGE" title="Home" 
   icon="ac0036-16.png" sidebar="west"/> 

Minimal http server embedded

A minimal http server is now embedded at org.formaria.http.HttpServer. When customized this server will allow a server appplication to signal a client via a http request. By customizing the server with a response handler the application can then respond with special actions, such as a wake-up or by requesting updates/new data from the server.

SystemTray support added

Support for the system tray or launch area has been added. When a system tray icon is added the application can choose to stay resident in memory after the main window has been closed by setting the "ExitOnClose" startup property to false. The advantage of doing this is that the data model does not need to be reinitialized if the main window is just being redisplayed. This initialization can be significantly quicker than normal startup as all

the classes needed by the JVM are already loaded. If remote data is used the startup gain may be even greater as network access may not be required.

The tray icon provides two menu items, one to open the window and the second to close the window and exit the JVM.

This version of the class uses the SwingLabs version of the tray support and is therefore limited to Swing. If JDK 6 or later is being used then the JVM's tray support could be used for non Swing applications.