Dynamic Views for Business Applications (Riena + Eclipse Modeling: EMF, oAW)

Ekkehard Gentz, Florian Pirchner

Eclipse Platform - Runtime · Long - one hour
Thursday, 14:30, 50 minutes | Room 206

Ekkehard Gentz

Florian Pirchner

Eclipse Riena gives you an easy way to create Views for business applications with databinding, markers (required, read-only, error), validation-rules and more.

A typical Business Application has many Views for simple data (CRUD) which can be generated from a data model, because its mostly the same how to represent Entity and their fields.

But it would be good to make some fine-tuning:

- change the order of fields
- set fields to invisible
- set fields to read-only
- set fields as mandatory
- set some validation - rules
- change representation

This can be done from a UI - designer or (business - oriented) key - user.

I'll show a way how Riena Views can be used a dynamically way:

* EMF Metamodel for Riena Views
* GUI Designer where you can change the UI using Drag'n'Drop: change behavior, change Ridgets
* Persist the changes using CDO
* Generate the View Model itself using Eclipse Modeling (openArchitectureWare) without loosing the changes from GUI Designer
* In RCP client UI you simply call getView(aEntity) to receive the View dynamically generated

The Session will also include a live round - trip demonstration.
* Entity Data Model (UML) for a simple use-case
* Generate Entities and ViewModel for each Entity
* Open generated View in ViewDesigner, change the View using Drag'n'Drop
* Change the Entity Data Model (add some fields)
* regenerate
* Open generated View to verify: first changes are still there - new fields added

ekke lives in the south of germany working as an independent Software Architect and Senior ERP Consultant.

He's using Eclipse since beginning.
ekke survived many technologies since more then 30 years of development in the domain of ERP solutions:
(Assembler, Cobol, Pascal, 4GL,...)
since 2000 working with Java and Domain-Specific-Languages (DSL)

ekke is architect of german ERP - Businessapplications, actually designing an ERP solution for companies of waste + recycling:
Server: OSGI (Equinox), Eclipse Riena, EasyBeans OSGI, JPA, BusinessProcessEngine, BusinessRulesEngine, BIRT Reporting
Rich Clients: OSGI (Equinox), Eclipse RCP, Eclipse Riena
Model-Driven: Eclipse Modeling (EMF, UML2, openArchitectureWare)

OpenSource: core parts from actual project will become Open Source (EPL)

If there's some time ;-) ekke likes:
- travelling as backpacker to the island of crete
- making photos of nature and kids
- reading books, listening music...
and of course spend time with his wife and kids

Flo lives in austria and is working as an application developer for about 10 years. He likes emf based development, as emf is a really great technology.