GWT@Jazoon08 - Part 6/6 - The Perfect Experience

LOGO SPEAKER‘S COMPANY

# 6the perfect experience.


Starbucks experience ...


the Virgin lounge ...


Vegas baby, yeah ...


gears.[ the quest ]


“Make it possible to create web appsas powerful as desktop appsby unlocking the local machine’s capabilities.”

- Gears Vision


BROWSER CHALLENGES

desktop experience

connectivity

reliability

responsiveness

computing power

busy?

loop?

what should I do?


MODULES

offline database blob

offline local server resumable upload

offline workerpool geolocation

desktop shortcuts file system load / save

desktop notifications

… much more on the way


gears.[ offline ]


blind adaption.

decide on offline features

modal versus modeless

manual versus background synchronization

architecture


OFFLINE FEATURE AVAILABILITY

caching transient data makes no senseReal-time stock quotes

some data just does not make sense offlineInstant messaging

doesn’t mean you have to cache everythingFrequently accessed data

computational / disk space requirements make it unfeasable


MODAL

distinct online / offline modes

user is state aware and and participates in switching states

online it only communicates with the server

data synchronization when the user switches between states

local data is not always up-to-date

more user interaction required


MODELESS

the application assumes it is offline

or that it can loose connection at any time

user does not have to be state aware

application uses the local store as much as possible

continuous small data syncs in the background

data synchronization is also done when coming back online


MANUAL SYNCHRONIZATION

user drives synchronization through user interface

user must be aware of the network state

user must remember to synchronize before going offline

amount of data must be small enough to download quickly

local data is not always up-to-date

more user interaction required


BACKGROUND SYNCHRONIZATION

continuous synchronization through background process

user is unaware

data is ready at all times (offline / accidentally disconnected)

fast performance even when slow connection

sync process might slow down the application


SYNCHRONIZATION IS HARD

need GUIDs

need timestamps (SQLite has no Date)

need a strategy :

last one wins

lock / checkout

let user decide


TRADITIONAL ARCHITECTURE

GEARS ARCHITECTURE


GEARS FEATURES

LocalServer

cache and serve application resources locally

Database

store data locally in a fully-searchable relational database

WorkerPool

perform resource-intensive operations asynchrounously


LOCALSERVER

ResourceStore

manual resource capturing

ManagedResourceStore

capture entire applications

list applications in separate manifest file

gears captures and updates the list automatically


WORKERPOOL

run JavaScript in the background

provides thread-like functionality

no more blocking the browser UI

inter WorkerPool Communication is via message Strings

no shared state or threading primitives

does not trigger the browser's "unresponsive script" dialog

no DOM access

no singleton, multiple instances can be instantiated


DATABASE

embedded SQLite

full text search with FTS2

limited data types (Integer, Real, Text, Blob)

low level API


SECURITY

one simple rule: Same-origin-policy

all local files are stored in your local profile directory


gears.[ advanced use case: orm ]


DATA OBJECT + GEARS ORM ANNOTATIONS

@gears.table (name=“Wishes”)

public class Wish implements GearsDataObject {

@gears.id (length = 50)

private String name;

@gears.column (name = “description”, length = 200)

private String description;

}

BINDING

<generate-with class=“com.GearsDAOGenerator”>

<when-type-assignable class=“com.GearsDataObject”/>

</generate-with>


USAGE

public void onModuleLoad() {

GearsDAO wishDAO = GWT.create(Wish.class); // Initializes database

Wish wish = new Wish(“Car”, “Red shiny with big wheels”);

wishDAO.save();

Wish wish = wishDAO.findById(“Car”);

wishDAO.delete(wish);

}


FIND BY EXAMPLE

@gears.namedQuery (name=“findByDescription”

sql=“select :Wishes where description = ?”)

@gears.table (name=“Wishes”)

public class Wish implements GearsDataObject {

public static final String FIND_BY_DESCRIPTION = “findByDescription”;

@gears.column (name = “description”, length = 200)

private String description;

}


USAGE

public void onModuleLoad() {

GearsDAO wishDAO = GWT.create(Wish.class);

GearsQuery query =

wishDAO.getNamedQuery(Wish.FIND_BY_DESCRIPTION);

query.setString(“Red shiny with big wheels”);

List<Wish> wishes = query.execute();

}


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GWT@Jazoon08 - Part 6/6 - The Perfect Experience