Browser based client for OpenPetra with jQuery

pokorra

Until now, I have worked quite a lot with ext.js and ext.net. They are very powerful tools, but ext.net demands quite the latest mono, which has cost me lots of energy, and ext.js is also quite huge.

I hear a lot about jQuery, and wondered if that might be easier to use.

Then I found on Saturday this Desktop Demo by Nathan Smith: sonspring.com/journal/jquery-desktop
And he is a brother too: "I seek to glorify the name of Jesus Christ through the use of the gifts and talents that God has given me."
This encouraged me, to try his demo in more depth.
It is very clean and little code, so I have more confidence to handle jQuery than ext.js, which is huge.

I also found out how I can use our web services directly with parameters and results encoded with JSON, which makes things even easier.

I am more confident, that this could be the future webbased client of OpenPetra.
I still need to find out how I can split screens into several javascript files, and create html screens dynamically etc.

A first demo is available here (login with demo/demo): demo.openpetra.org/jquery

The ext.net desktop application is now also available again as a demo, at demo.openpetra.org/Apps/OnlineRe ... onBackend/

joejoe2010

Hey Timo,

I find this web client project quite interesting.
Would this avoid adapting openpetra to Linux and Mac as then each user that does not uses windows just could use the webbased-client?

I just heard at university about another Toolkit. It's called dojo (http://dojotoolkit.org/) and the guy who is using it mentioned that it would help to create applications in a browser that look quite similar to a Windows Desktop application. But although the documentation of this project would be poor.
And he mentioned as well that it would make many requests from/to the server on the beginning of a connection (which would be a disadvantage on a slow internet connection).

He also mentioned other toolkits but those wouldn't be that far developed as dojo and jQuery.

Have you already been implementing something in jQuery?

Why would you want to change from ext to another Toolkit? Because of what you mentioned about mono?
Do you think it would be worth the effort to start developing again in another Toolkit? Or could code from ext be re-used in jQuery?

How much effort did you alread but in ext? Will all the screens be implemented again in ext or jQuery for the webbased client or could code from the Windows Client be used?
On which toolkit is the Teenstreet registration based? (Sorry, perhaps you already mentioned this once but I forgot ;-) )

What do you think?
Greetings
Joachim

pokorra

Hello Joachim,

it is good to think about the future of OpenPetra.

For OM, we will deliver the first usable version of OpenPetra with a fat client.
There is too much work to be done for the browser based client, which will not fit any time frame for delivering OpenPetra for OM.

In general, I think we need to provide a usable browser based client at some point in time. This will allow people to use OpenPetra from any machine.
This would be nice for all sorts of Operating systems, you are right.

Regarding the available javascript toolkits, there are long discussions on StackOverflow:

They have to download the javascript code to the browser in the beginning, that is correct.

I started to work with jQuery just this weekend. So far, I quite like it.

I have invested quite a lot for the ext.js browser based interface for TeenStreet. Even wrote my own generator of the javascript, also based on the yaml files. This is used for the online application for the TeenStreet participants.
I will not be able to replace this quickly with jQuery.

The other thing is ext.net/. This uses ext.js for the client, and provides a .net framework for the server side. That is quite tricky, and involves very new features of C#, which requires a custom built Mono version of mono trunk, because Mono 2.10.8 is too old. Some bugs in Mono have only be fixed on Mono trunk.
I try to get away from ext.net, since it is too complex for me.
I have used it for the backend of the TeenStreet registration, which is used by the Home offices who are approving the applications and organising the conference in a web browser based client of OpenPetra. I have posted the link to a demo of that in my previous post.

I heard that zarafa.com/ is also using ext.js. But I have not met any developers working with ext.js. But people are talking about jQuery.

I want to find a solution, that is easy to handle for me, and that I can train other people on. With ext.js and ext.net, I was not confident enough to train anyone else.
So I am the only one, who is supporting that for OpenPetra, and that is not a good situation.

I cannot say, where the long-term future for OpenPetra is. I am just trying what gets into my hands. If someone wants also to investigate other solutions, go for it!
We can reuse most of the server code, and even the ideas for the client. Perhaps we can even just change the generator, and keep using the same yaml files.

Hope that makes sense,
Timotheus

joejoe2010

Hi Timo,

thank you for explaining this a bit more.
Greetings
Joachim