L2: Web Application Development

Direct Web Remoting (DWR): Ajax made easy…

Daniel BryantDaniel Bryant

Department of Computing, FEPS (d.bryant@surrey.ac.uk)

Tai-Dev Ltd, (daniel.bryant@tai-dev.co.uk)

Today’s roadmap...

• My life story (in under 3 minutes)…

• Quick review - so, what is Ajax? (Old school vs new school)

• DWR

� Introduction

� Looking deeper into DWR (client-side/server-side)

� Implementation� Implementation

� Demo (and debugging)

• Quick case study – TriOpsis Ltd

• DWR is awesome!! But are there any disadvantages?

• Review

My life story (abridged)…

• Studying at Surrey for 8 years

� BSc Computing and IT - Placement at DTI (now called BERR, DBIS etc. etc...)

� MSc Internet Computing

• PhD Student within the Department of Computing� Argumentation “how humans reason”

� Software Agents “mobile and/or intelligent code”

• JEE, Web 2.0, J2ME & RDBMS Consultant

� Working freelance for the past 5 years

� Started Tai-Dev Ltd 1 year ago (http://tai-dev.blog.co.uk/)

� J2EE, JEE 5, JSE, J2ME

� Spring, Hibernate, MySQL, GlassFish v2

� HTML, CSS, Javascript

� Prototype, Script.aculo.us, JQuery

� Direct Web Remoting (DWR)…

So, just what is Ajax?

• “Asynchronous JavaScript and XML”

� “…group of interrelated web development techniques used for creating interactive web applications or rich Internet applications.” (Wikipedia, 2008)

• Building block for “Web 2.0” applications

� Facebook, Google Mail and many more (auto-complete forms)

• Applications can retrieve data from the server asynchronously in the background

without interfering with the display and behaviour of the existing page

� No browser plugins (a’la Flash, Flex, SilverLight)

• The use of JavaScript, XML, or its asynchronous use is not required…

Ajax - the old school way…

Client

Server

http://java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/J2EE/AJAX

Old school, not so cool…

• Client-side� Browser incompatibilities (Microsoft, and then the rest of the world...)

� Long-winded

� Error prone

� Responsible for parsing return data, often XML-based

� Responsible for handling application errors (response codes?)

� Large amount of repeated “boiler plate” code

• Server-side� Create Servlets (no abstraction, and limited chance to allow design patterns)

� Construct XML document of data

� Responsible for “flattening” Objects and Collections

� Set content-type of return data manually

� Manual error handing (convert Exceptions into response codes?)

Introducing the alternatives…

• JavaScript Libraries/Frameworks� dojo, JQuery, Prototype

� Greatly simplify client-side code

� Not so helpful on server-side…

• JSP Taglibs/JSF Components� jMaki, Ajax4jsf� jMaki, Ajax4jsf

� Very easy to utilise

� Limited server-side configuration (majority of focus on existing widgets and services)

• Proxy-based Frameworks� Direct Web Remoting (DWR), Rajax

� Best of both worlds

� Language specific on backend (Java)

• Tip: Always new stuff coming out – check blogs and news sites...

Direct Web Remoting (DWR)Overview

• DWR allows easy implementation of Ajax functionality

� Homepage @ http://directwebremoting.org/

� Open source

� JavaScript “client-side”

� Java “server-side”

• Proxy-based framework

� Client-side code can call Java server-side methods as if they were local

JavaScript functions.

� Converts or “marshalls” parameters and return variable to/from Java/JavaScript

• DWR generates the intermediate code (“piping” or boilerplate code)

• Also provides Utility classes

DWR in pictures

Image from http://directwebremoting.org/dwr/overview/dwr

Client-side

• Core components� DWR JavaScript engine

� JavaScript “interface” definitions of remote methods

� JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) used instead of XML

• Call Java methods as if local JavaScript functions� Albeit with callbacks…

• Hides browser incompatibilities (via “engine.js”)� XMLHttpRequest Object

� Maps function calls to URLs

• Converts or “marshalls” data� Java ArrayLists into JavaScript arrays

� Java Objects into JavaScript object

• Simplifies error-handling� Maps Java Exceptions to JavaScript errors

Server-side

• Core components� DWR JAR Library

� Proxy generator

� DWRServlets

• Easy framework configuration� XML or Annotations (Java 5+)

� Care needed…� Care needed…

• Not tied to writing Servlets� Promotes good OO coding and design patterns

• Simply expose (existing) Application Services� Specify order and types of parameter

� Can return any type of Collection or Object

� Can utilise Spring, Struts, JSF…

Implementation in 5 (easy) steps…

1. Copy DWR Library files into project

2. Configure your existing framework to handle DWR requests

3. Create your Data Model (Business Objects) and Application Services3. Create your Data Model (Business Objects) and Application Services

4. Inform DWR of these classes and their required exposure client-side1. dwr.xml configuration file

2. Annotations (Java 5+)

5. Create your client-side functions

Handling http requests (web.xml)….

…

<servlet>

<servlet-name>dwr-invoker</servlet-name>

<servlet-class>org.directwebremoting.servlet.DwrServlet</servlet-class>

<init-param>

<param-name>classes</param-name>

<param-value><param-value>

uk.ac.surrey.wappdev.appservices.FeedbackService,

uk.ac.surrey.wappdev.model.FeedbackBean

</param-value>

</init-param>

</servlet>

<servlet-mapping>

<servlet-name>dwr-invoker</servlet-name>

<url-pattern>/dwr/*</url-pattern>

</servlet-mapping>

…

Create the Model (Business Objects)

package uk.ac.surrey.wappdev.model;

import org.directwebremoting.annotations.DataTransferObject;

import org.directwebremoting.annotations.RemoteProperty;

@DataTransferObject

public class FeedbackBean {

@RemoteProperty

private int id;private int id;

@RemoteProperty

private String feedbackValue;

public FeedbackBean() {

}

public FeedbackBean(int id, String feedbackValue) {

this.id = id;

this.feedbackValue = feedbackValue;

}

//getter and setter defined here...

…

Create your Application Services…

package uk.ac.surrey.wappdev.appservices;

import ...

@RemoteProxy

public class FeedbackService {

@RemoteMethod

public List<FeedbackBean> getFeedbackAvailable() {public List<FeedbackBean> getFeedbackAvailable() {

List<FeedbackBean> results = new ArrayList<FeedbackBean>();

for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++) {

FeedbackBean fbBean = new FeedbackBean(i, "Feedback Value " + i);

results.add(fbBean);

}

return results;

}

...

}

Create your client-side functions…

<script src='dwr/interface/LocService.js'></script>

<script src='dwr/engine.js'></script>

<script>

function updateFeedback() {

//alert("updateFeedback()");

FeedbackService.getFeedbackAvailable({

callback:function(dataFromServer) {

cbUpdateFeedback(dataFromServer);

},

errorHandler:function(errorString, exception) {

alert("Error: " + errorString);

package uk.ac.surrey.wappdev.appservices;

import ...

@RemoteProxy

public class FeedbackService {

@RemoteMethod

public List<FeedbackBean>

getFeedbackAvailable() {

List<FeedbackBean> results =

new ArrayList<FeedbackBean>();

for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++) {

FeedbackBean fbBean =

new FeedbackBean(i, "Feedback

Value " + i);alert("Error: " + errorString);

}

});

}

function cbUpdateFeedback(feedbackBeanList) {

//alert("cbUpdateFeedback()");

for (var i = 0, l = feedbackBeanList.length; i < l; i++) {

var option = document.createElement("option");

option.setAttribute("value",feedbackBeanList[i].id);

var optText = document.createTextNode(feedbackBeanList[i].feedbackValue);

option.appendChild(optText);

document.getElementById("feedbackEl").appendChild(option);

}

}

</script>

results.add(fbBean);

}

return results;

}

...

}

Lights, camera, action...(oh yes, and debugging)

• Quick demo of slide material

• Quick look at debugging� Client-side – Firefox’s Firebug� Client-side – Firefox’s Firebug

� Server-side – Netbeans’ debugger

• Tip: If you want to be a professional software developer debugging

efficiently should become as natural as breathing…� Not emphasized enough in teaching (but this is just my opinion)

� Probably a worthwhile skill for those final year projects as well…

Real world case study... TriOpsis Ltd

• Highly innovative start-up company based at the Research Park (STC)

• Check out www.triopsis.co.uk for more information

• Experts in the emerging field of Visual Business Information

• Specialising on ‘in the field’ data capture via mobile devices

• Images and associated metadata reporting relevant to target customer

Real world case study... TriOpsis Ltd

Screenshot of TriOpsis Flagship product – the ‘Asset Manager’ (implemented by yours truly!)

And finally…There are some disadvantages with DWR…

• As with any framework that generates (blackbox) “piping”� Sometimes difficult to know what is happening “in the pipe”

• Potentially difficult to debug� Spans across client and server domain

� Can use Netbeans debugger and FireFox’s Firebug

• Maintaining http session information� Hybrid of POSTed forms and Ajax

• Can cause unexpectedly large amounts of http traffic� Passing of complete object graphs (typically developer error ☺ )

• Potential security implications � Exposing incorrect methods etc.

� Easy to pass sensitive data in plaintext (passwords etc.) without knowing

Conclusions

• We know what Ajax is…

• We examined old school/new school approaches to implementation

• We learned that DWR is a “proxy-based” framework

� Providing (JavaScript) client and (Java) server-side Ajax support

� Allows exposure of Java model (BOs) and services

� DWR “handles the details”..� DWR “handles the details”..

• We’ve seen how to implement DWR

• We’ve had a look at an often undervalued skill – debugging

• Seen real case study using this technology, TriOpsis, which is actively used within Industry

• And we are always aware of potential disadvantages

� Beware of “black box” implementations…

� Security, session and http traffic

Thanks for your attention…

• I’m happy to answer questions now or later...

• If you want to know more about DWR or debugging ask for a lab session

� Sorry, but I can’t answer individual emails...� Sorry, but I can’t answer individual emails...

• Feedback, comments, constructive criticism...